THE IMPERISHABLE HEART 



JAMES CRAIG BUCHANAN 



LIBRARY OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 



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The Imperishable Heart 



And Other Pulpit Addresses 



BY 



JAMES CRAIG BUCHANAN, M. A. 




BOSTON: THE GORHAM PRESS 

TORONTO: THE COPP CLARK CO., LIMITED 



:. • 



Copyright, 1917, by James Craig Buchanan 



All Rights Reserved 






FEB 23 ISI7 



MADE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 



?CU455661 



To 
MY MOTHER 

and to the Memory of 
MY FATHER 



ft 



without whose spiritual nurture 

-as without their natural parenthood- 

these Addresses 

could not have been. 



PREFACE 

These Addresses have been selected from those prepared 

in the course of my usual week-to-week ministrations as 

preacher and pastor. 

The Addresses appear here as nearly as possible word for 

word as they were delivered. 

My hearty thanks are due to the Rev. Wm. H. Boocock 

for wise and brotherly counsel regarding the publication 

of these addresses; also to another friend, who shall be 

nameless here, but who dare not deny me the privilege of 

acknowledging his kindness on this page. 



J. C. B. 



First Presbyterian Church, 

Gowanda, New York. 

January I, 19 17. 



CONTENTS 

Page 

I. THE IMPERISHABLE HEART. .... 13 
"Your heart shall live for ever." — 
Psalm XXII, 26. 

II. SOUL TRANSFERENCE 22 

"If your soul were in my soul's stead." 
—Job XVI, 4. 

III. THE EVERLASTING NOW 31 

"Behold, now is the accepted time; be- 
hold, now is the day of salvation." 
— II Corinthians VI, 2. 

IV. THE ONE MASTER 42 

"One is your master, even Christ." — 
Matthew XXIII, 10. 

V. SACRIFICES OF JOY 52 

"Therefore will I offer . . . sacri- 
fices of joy." — Psalm XXVII, 6. 

VI. ARE WE ALL SINNERS? 62 

"If we say that we have no sin, we de- 
ceive ourselves." — I. John I, 8. 
VII. MANY THINGS, BUT NOT THE 

THING 72 

"He did many things" — Mark VI, 20. 

VIII. SPOILED 81 

"And when thou art spoiled, what wilt 
thou do?" — Jeremiah IV, 30. 

IX. CHRISTIAN COURTESY 90 

"Be courteous." — I Peter III, 8. 

X. COMPLAINING 99 

"And when the people complained, it dis- 
pleased the LORD" — Joshua 
XI, 1. 



CONTENTS 

Page 
XL WAS EVER ANY ONE DISAP- 
POINTED IN JESUS ? 109 

"And they that were sent went their way, 
and found even as He had said unto 
them." — Luke XIX, 32. 

XII. DISTRACTIONS 119 

"And as thy servant was busy here and 
there, he was gone." — I Kings 
XX, 40. 

XIII. HINDERERS 129 

"Deliver me from the oppression of man : 
so will I keep Thy precepts." — 
Psalm CXIX, 134. 

XIV. THE HAPPINESS OF HOLDING 

ON 139 

"Behold, we count them happy which en- 
dure." — James V, 11. 
XV. THE DIVINE ARITHMETIC 149 

"So teach us to number our days, that we 
may apply our hearts unto wisdom." 
— Psalm XC, 12. 
XVI. THE SUPERIOR BLESSEDNESS OF 

GIVING 159 

"It is more blessed to give than to re- 
ceive." — Acts XX, 35. 
XVII. DISHONORABLE EXEMPTION 

FROM SERVICE 169 

"And the officers shall speak further unto 
the people, and they shall say, What 
man is there that is fearful and 
fainthearted? Let him go and re- 
turn unto his house, lest his breth- 
ren's heart faint as well as his." — 
Deuteronomy XX, 8. 
XVIII. REFRESHMENT OF SPIRIT. . . ... . 179 

"For they have refreshed my spirit" — 
I Corinthians XVI, 18. 



CONTENTS 

Page 
XIX. NO FUEL, NO FIRE 189 

"Where no wood is, there the fire goeth 
out!' — Proverbs XXVI, 20. 
XX. "THE GIFT WITHOUT THE GIV- 
ER IS BARE" 200 

"They . . . first gave their own 
selves to the Lord." — II Corinth- 
ians VIII, 5. 
XXI. "FAITH DIVERSIFIED BY DOUBT" 210 
"Lord, I believe: help thou mine unbe- 
lief" — Mark IX, 24. 

XXII. ABIDING WEALTH 220 

" . . . rich toward God" — Luke 
XII, 21. 

XXIII. SONGS IN THE NIGHT. (Christmas, 

1915) : 230 

"God my maker, who giveth songs in the 
night."— Job XXXV, 10. 

XXIV. THE CHILDREN 240 

"And He took a child, and set him in the 
midst." — Mark IX, 36. 

XXV. THE MOTHERS 250 

"Thy mother shall be glad." — Prov- 
erbs XXIII, 25. 



"The soul may be trusted to the end." . . * 

— Emerson. 

"Faith is a certitude without proofs. Being a certitude, 

it is an energetic principle of action. . . . 

Faith is a sentiment, for it is a hope; it is an instinct, 

for it precedes all outward instruction. 
Faith is the heritage of the individual at birth ; it is that 
which binds him to the whole of being." . . . 

— Amiel. 

"But where will God be absent? In His face 
Is light ; but in His shadow healing, too." . . . 

— Browning. 

"I should bear false witness if I did not declare life hap- 
py." — Stevenson. 

"The Love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 
. . . —St. Paul. 



The Imperishable Heart 

i 

THE IMPERISHABLE HEART 

"Your heart shall live for ever!' — Psalm XXII, 26. 

' I * HIS Psalm, like so many of the Psalms, is not all 
of one hue. It begins with plaint and pleading, and 
ends with praise and promise. It is, in the first part of 
it, the cry of a sorely-tried and much-thwarted life; but 
suddenly (at the 22nd verse) the tone changes, and the 
poem tells of prayer answered and of ground for grati- 
tude and of good days ahead: "The meek shall eat and 
be satisfied; they shall praise the Lord that seek Him; 
your heart shall live for ever." 

Whether the words of our text were spoken to an indi- 
vidual or to the nation as a whole, matters little. The 
suggestion is the same in either case. The life of the God- 
trusting soul — or of the God-trusting people — is secure. 
The essentials of their lives cannot be destroyed. The 
"heart" of their experiences, of their aspirations, of their 
joys, of their achievements in righteousness and usefulness 
is immortal, and cannot die. "Your heart shall live for 
ever." 

It is told of the ancient Scottish king, Robert the Bruce, 
that, when he died, his heart was cut out and placed in a 
silver casket by one of the fiery Douglases: and wherever 
that casket went — with its precious contents — courage 
went with the army. And, when James Douglas was 
13 



14 The Imperishable Heart 

wounded to the death, he untied the casket from his own 
neck and threw it into the midst of his battalion, that the 
fire and force of the dead Bruce might remain with his 
men. 

If you go over to London, and enter Westminster Ab- 
bey by the West door, and turn to the left and walk up 
the North aisle, you will come to a stone slab let into the 
floor. In fact you will probably walk over it. It is the 
tombstone of David Livingstone. But before Livingstone's 
body had been brought home from Africa to England and 
buried in the Abbey, what had happened? One May 
morning, forty-one years ago, the great missionary-explorer 
had been found by his faithful native servants dead at his 
bedside — kneeling in the attitude of prayer. Purposing 
to embalm his body and carry it to the coast, these natives 
first of all took out the heart and buried it at the foot of a 
large tree there — in the village of Ilala. A touching, 
though unconscious, prophecy on the part of these dark 
sons of Africa that the heart of Livingstone would always 
remain in the Dark Continent — until that continent should 
be flooded with the light of the Gospel ! And their proph- 
ecy has not failed of fulfilment. For, while Livingstone 
was but one of a mere corporal's guard of Christian mis- 
sionaries in Africa half a century ago, there are scores of 
men and women there now — both in the center of the 
country and on its coasts — opening up the country and 
letting in the light of civilization and the message of the 
love of Christ. Truly that missionary heart (although 
the actual heart of flesh would probably by this time, were 
it exhumed, be indistinguishable from the dust in which it 
was buried) — truly that missionary heart 'lives for ever.' 



The Imperishable Heart 15 

"The mainspring of life," it has been said, "is in the 
heart." 

You know how literally true that is of our physical 
life. So long as the heart continues to beat, there is life 
and there is hope. 

Similarly, so long as the heart of any experience or of 
any worthy movement or of any human achievement is not 
killed out, the thing lives. There is something abiding — 
something immortal — at the heart of everything that is 
at all worth while. "Your heart shall live for ever." 

My last morning at sea, lately, — just as we were enter- 
ing Boston harbor — a gentleman sitting at the same break- 
fast-table with me said, "Well, we may never have another 
trip across the Atlantic; but nobody can take away this 
one from us." There was no silly sigh that the voyage 
was over and done-with — a thing of the past ; but a smile 
of satisfaction that, after all, it could never be over and 
done-with — could never be a thing of the past. The 
memory of it, the benefit of it to both body and soul, the 
passing companionships of it, the whole blessing of it, the 
"heart" of it, are here for all time. O, my friends, it is 
a dangerous habit — a faithless habit, — moaning over what 
has been: the irrevocable past, as it is sometimes phrased. 
It is not wholly irrevocable, — beyond recall. In various 
ways it may be recalled. The essentials of our past ex- 
periences remain with us, — bound up with what we are 
and what we think and what we do today. The "heart" 
of the days gone by is with us still. For the wisdom of 
God, and the love of God, which are — somehow — at the 
core of all our experiences, are "the same yesterday, and 
today, and for ever." 



1 6 The Imperishable Heart 

"There shall never be one lost good! What was, shal' 
live as before." 
You, my friend of fifty or sixty or seventy, do yoi 
mean to tell me that the boyishness-of-it — or the girlish 
ness-of-it — has entirely vanished from your nature; 
that you have lost every jot and tittle of the spring o: 
youth? I refuse to believe it: that is, if you are living 
with your face toward the light and 'waiting on thy Goc 
continually.' Don't we read, in one of the praise-Psalms 
of the 'renewal of youth?' Don't we hear the prophei 
Isaiah say, "They that wait upon the Lord shall renev* 
their strength: they shall mount up with wings as eagles 
. . . shall run, and not be weary;' " shall walk, anc 
not faint. And it was not to the youngsters exclusively 
— it was to all and sundry — that our Saviour said, "Veril) 
I say unto you, Except ye . . . become as little chil 
dren, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Yes 
mark you, He seems to indicate, there, that it is partly 
within our own choice and within our own power to re- 
tain the best characteristics and the best blessings — to keep 
the soul — of our earlier days. 

There was published, the other day, a book by a British 
preacher — recently gone to his long home, entitled "The 
Romance of Preaching:" in which the author says that 
the great task of the preacher is "keeping the soul of the 
world alive." Yes, my friends, that is the "joy and 
crown" of us preachers. Not familiarizing people with 
names and things, with theories and systems. Nor yet 
continually nagging at people as to what they should do 
— and should not do (after all, the majority of people 



The Imperishable Heart 17 

don't need to be told that). But inspiring people, ac- 
cording to our gift and power. And that, largely, by 
persuading them that this world as God has made it — 
with all its sights and sounds, and with all its human ex- 
periences, and with its sweet story of the Christ — has 
a soul to it; that there is good and glory at the heart of 
it all — something which abides and is alive for evermore 
(unless we ourselves do the smothering and the killing). 

Yes, "your heart shall live for ever!" That is the 
preacher's message to every human life, to every institu- 
tion that is 'making for righteousness,' and to every good 
impulse that he may detect in man or woman — or boy or 
girl. 

And, f their heart shall live for ever!' That is the mes- 
sage of the preacher to his fellows about their various mor- 
tal experiences: about the influences of the flowers and 
the stars, and their books and their pictures, and their 
friendships, and their joys and their sorrows. 

We need just such a message — all of us. Because, our 
memories are rather short sometimes, and we are too much 
occupied — sometimes — with the mere outward trappings 
of our experiences; and so we feel that many things are 
slipping away from us, which we would fain keep. 

But don't let us get discouraged. For, after all, if the 
"heart" of a thing "lives" with us, that is the main 
point. 

For instance, I read Emerson frequently. I just revel 
in those wonderful essays of his. And yet I would not 
undertake to quote exactly — here and now — more than 
about three short sentences from Emerson. Well, per- 
haps I should cultivate a more retentive memory. But I 



1 8 The Imperishable Heart 

am not worrying: because I believe I have captured the 
"heart" of these writings. I think I understand their 
essential message. They have gripped me, and influenced 
my whole way of thinking. 

I am a great believer, indeed, in people memorizing, — 
especially young people; and I am mightily glad that I 
was made, long ago, to get by heart sundry passages of the 
Great Book here and some of our best Christian hymns. 
Call it a mechanical type of teaching, if you like: it is 
immensely useful, and it will be a poor day when our boys 
and girls get the notion that memorizing is beneath them. 
All the same, my friends, the chief thing is to "pluck out 
the heart" of a book — to get the spiritual dynamic of it 
into our personalities — to make sure that its life energizes 
within us. We ought to be able to say to the best books — 
and to this Book above all, — "Your heart shall live" in 
me "for ever." And so it is that Stevenson says some- 
where, "When you have read" (persumably he means a 
really worthy and substantial book) — "when you have 
read, . . . it is as though you had touched a loyal 
hand, looked into brave eyes, and made a noble friend; 
there is another bond on you thenceforward, binding you 
to life and to the love of virtue." 

And so, my friends, with a great and pure Love. It 
cannot die. It abides. It 'lives for ever.' It may be sore 
tried from time to time. It may grow cold occasionally, 
or clammy with suspicion. It may be scorched, now and 
again, with the fires of unholy passion, — and be like to 
turn from love to lust. It may be strained almost to the 
breaking point, sometimes, for lack of being reciprocated. 



The Imperishable Heart 19 

And, finally, it may be bereaved — robbed of the mortal 
comradeship of its beloved. But, if it is a true Love, 
none of these things can spear the "heart" of it. It lives 
to all eternity. 

"Time cannot age it, 
Death cannot slay." 

"Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the 
floods drown it." 

O, surely, my friends, that is fact, and not merely rhet- 
oric. Surely we are encouraged to believe that, although 
separation may continue for a time, we may look for a 
day of re-union — the day of Love Triumphant. 

And so, again, with a great Sorrow. The outward 
trappings of it — the particular circumstances of it — 
become things of yesterday. The pressing poig- 
nancy of it disappears by and by, and only returns 
occasionally in the form of a dull ache. Sometimes, indeed, 
we are almost ashamed of ourselves for having gotten back, 
so soon after a time of trial, the old smile and the old 
buoyancy. That, however, is of the mercy of God. But, 
my friends, what we cannot afford to do — what we can- 
not do, if our spirits are "finely touched ... to fine 
issues" and if we have "the smallest scruple of" Nature's 
"excellence" — (what we cannot do) is to forget entirely 
the touch of a chaste and noble sorrow — to let the 
"heart" of it go. You are playing a perilous part if you 
are telling people lightly to forget their griefs — to "get 
over" them. They can't get over them: at least, they 
ought not. Let us hope, indeed, that their griefs will not 
get over them, but get into them — become part of their 



20 The Imperishable Heart 

deepening and expanding life. 

There are, perhaps, some sorrows — neither chaste nor 
noble — which are best forgotten wholly and for ever. But 
most sorrows, I will say, if we could see to the "heart" 
of them, are the gift of God; and so their issue is for all 
time. 

And then my friends, as we stand in amazement, or as 
we kneel in humility, at the Cross of Christ, are we not 
bound to say, "Your heart shall live for ever". 

Near nineteen centuries ago, now, that instrument of 
crucifixion was taken down ; and we are not sure, at this 
time of day, of the precise spot where it stood when Jesus 
hung upon it. But the "heart" of that symbol of Ever- 
lasting Love lives for ever.' The mighty comfort of it 
we know and prize today. The compulsion of it we feel and 
respond to — today. What are alleged to be broken pieces 
of that Cross are still shown to travellers in some of the 
Cathedrals of Europe : but these are only improbable relics. 
And, even if we could actually handle the very spars that 
were pressed by our Saviour's tortured limbs, what of 
that? It is not the wood of the cross, it is the worth of 
the cross we wish to feel. It is the meaning of the great 
sacrifice on Calvary that we want to know, — and that we 
may surely know if we read here and if we ask of those 
who have been "apprehended of Christ Jesus." It is the 
meaning of it for suffering and sin-stricken Humanity, — 
"the Love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 
And so, when we speak of "the Cross of Christ," we are 
not thinking of an unsightly wooden instrument of tor- 
ture and shame: what we are thinking of is that Love 



The Imperishable Heart 21 

whose "breadth and length and depth and height" we 
cannot, indeed, "comprehend," but whose tenderness and 
forbearance we have experienced a thousand times, and in 
whose inspiration the world's best men and women have 
lived and died. 

"It is God; His love looks mighty, 
But is mightier than it seems : 
'Tis our Father ; and His fondness 
Goes far out beyond our dreams." 

Here, then, brethren, is the conclusion of the whole 
matter this evening. Make sure that you get to the 
"heart" of things. Your daily tasks: your reading and 
your studies: the beauties and bounties of Nature: your 
friendships: your joys, and your sorrows: your acquaint- 
anceship with the "Strong Son of God" — with His life 
and teaching — with His Death of Love and Resurrection 
of Power. Make sure that you get right into the heart 
of all these things. For GOD is at the heart of them, — 
His gracious purposes and His immortal Love. 

And (need I tell you?) the only way to reach the 
heart of things, and to discern God's heart-beat there, is 
to keep your own hearts pure: 

"Blessed are the pure in heart: 
for they shall see GOD." 



II 

SOUL TRANSFERENCE 

"If your soul were in my soul's stead." — Job XVI, 4. 

HT* HERE are people who mean well, but they don't 
know how. They have a sort of neighborly instinct 
— an instinct of helpfulness; but they do not fully under- 
stand. Consequently their performances are not as good 
as their purposes. Why? Because they haven't the fac- 
ulty (which, by the way, is partly a gift, partly an ac- 
quisition) — they haven't the faculty of putting themselves 
in other people's places, the faculty of understandingly 
and feelingly 'rejoicing with them that do rejoice and 
weeping with them that weep.' Their sympathy is, per- 
haps, sincere enough, but rather superficial : pious enough, 
perhaps, but lacking in perspective and in power of pro- 
jection. 

Job's three friends were of that class. They meant 
well, but they didn't know how. They said many true 
things, many wise things, many wonderful things, — and 
even some kind things; but, somehow or other, they cut 
and crushed more than they comforted. 

So much so, indeed, that, after they had spoken, each 
once — and the first of them twice, Job broke out in the 
bitterness of his soul on this wise, "I have heard many 
such things: miserable comforters are ye all. ... I 
also could speak as ye do; if your soul were in my 
soul's stead, I could heap up words against you. . . . 
22 



Soul Transference 23 

But (in such case) I would strengthen you with my 
mouth, and the moving of my lips should assuage your 
grief" — not aggravate it. 

"If your soul were in my soul's stead!" Ay, there was 
the explanation of their weakness, and the sting of Job's 
loneliness. They were not in his place; and, moreover, 
had not sufficiently tried in imagination to put themselves 
in his place. They were only standing at the portal of 
Job's grief: they had not sought access to its "secret place." 
And, unless "spirit with spirit" will meet, there is no 
fulness of understanding. 

To understand," it has been said, "(to understand) 
is more difficult than to judge, for understanding is the 
transference of the mind into the conditions of the object, 
whereas judgment is simply the enunciation of the indi- 
vidual opinion." Mark that phrase there, — "the trans- 
ference of the mind into the conditions of the object:" — 
"If your soul were in my soul's stead!" 

Not simply, mark you, if you were in my place — if your 
circumstances were mine and mine yours; but, if your 
soul were in my soul's stead — if you only knew the secret 
surgings of my heart in all this inexplicable trouble! 

Yes, indeed, it is something to know a person's circum- 
stances, — to know how he is placed, and what are his chief 
encouragements and chief discouragements, and so forth. 
But that is not enough. We must know, in some degree, 
the person's Self: his cast of thought, his type of temper- 
ament, his tastes (both higher and lower), his heart's 
desires (both the best of them and the worst of them) : in 
short, his individuality, his inner life, his SOUL-LIFE. 



24 The Imperishable Heart 

Oh, it is easy enough to pick up information about people, 
and to know what they say and what they have and what 
they do — without knowing almost at all what they are, 
as human entities, as Personalities, as Souls. And so, there 
are people who talk knowingly and glibly, and with an 
astonishing and almost aggravating familiarity, about the 
happenings and habits of your life; who, nevertheless, you 
feel all the time, are hopelessly lacking in insight and do 
not understand. And there are even people who wish to 
be kind to you (and, mark you, I say this in no spirit 
of cynicism) — there are even people who wish to be kind 
to you, but whose proffered kindness seems, somehow, to 
rub you the wrong way : because they, again, do not under- 
stand, and so succeed only in patronizing — where they had 
meant to cheer and uplift. 

It is so necessary to put ourselves in other people's 
places — not merely in the sense of 'standing in their shoes' 
(as it is sometimes phrased), but, if by any means pos- 
sible, by dwelling in their Souls: not merely by an 
imagined transference of Place, but by an imagined trans- 
ference of Personality. "If your soul were in my soul's 
stead!" 

I had a friend in the Old Country, a few years my 
junior, who used to consult me a good deal about religious 
beliefs and religious experiences, when I was at the theo- 
logical seminary stage. Being at that stage, I was young 
enough and naively egotistical enough, to say very fre- 
quently, "If I were you, I would do so and so." One 
evening, when we were discussing something, and when I 
had come out with my usual formula, he said quietly, "Yes, 
but then, you see, you're not me and I'm not you." It 



Soul Transference 25 

was one of the best things that was ever said to me: one 
of those obvious things which come, however, with an 
altogether new flash of illumination when spoken in cer- 
tain circumstances and at a psychological moment. It set 
me thinking. It served to increase considerably my store 
of human thoughtfulness, of charity, of Christian toler- 
ance. It served to remind me that we are not all made 
after the same pattern; that we have — each of us — our 
own lives to live, — our own thoughts, our own points 
of view, our own tastes and temperaments; that, as the 
Book of Revelation has it, each one of us has a "name 
written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth 
it." 

Then, I remember being greatly impressed, years ago, 
with the reading of an Address which was given to the 
students of the University of Glasgow by Joseph Cham- 
berlain (then at the height of his power) on the cultiva- 
tion of the Imagination in our relations with others. That, 
I dare say, was not the exact title of the address ; but that 
was the subject. It was certainly most suggestive and 
helpful, and I have never happened to see the subject dealt 
with in the same way since. He began (unless my memory 
plays me false), by referring to the various possible uses of 
the imagination. Then he narrowed himself down to this 
one use, this most humane of all the uses, of the Imagina- 
tion: namely, trying, by a concentrated and chastened ef- 
fort of mind, to occupy other people's places, to experi- 
ence as nearly as possible what they are thinking and 
planning and suffering and rejoicing in, and so on. It was 
in a daily newspaper that I read the address, and I did not 
keep a copy of it. But I have often, often thought of it 



26 The Imperishable Heart 

since. Because, while we use our imaginations in all sorts 
of ways, — frivolously and fantastically, and riotously, and 
suspiciously; we do not use them anything like often 
enough in the humane and sympathetic way I am trying 
to urge upon you this evening, — trying to understand 
folk's Souls, as well as their Circumstances. 

Indeed, friends, some of the Finer Human Sentiments — 
especially the more Christ-like Sentiments — are simply im- 
possible without this getting of ourselves, perceivingly and 
humbly and courteously, into the sanctuaries of other peo- 
ple's lives. Such things as Gratitude, Thoughtfulness, 
Sympathy, Persuasiveness, Forgiveness, Charity: such 
things as these, in anything like sincerity and depth (I 
mean), are impossible of attainment without a certain 
"transference of the mind," without a sort of exchange of 
Place and Personality — by a sane and sanctified use of the 
Imagination. Listen to what George Eliot says about 
"charity towards our stumbling, falling companions in the 
long . . . journey." "There is but one way," she 
says, "in which a strong determined soul can learn it — 
by getting his heart-strings bound round the weak and 
erring, so that he must share not only the outward con- 
sequence of their error, but their inward suffering." Oh, 
how wise, how gracious, how understanding of that clever 
woman to say that! And, as with charity, so with such 
other Finer Sentiments as I have mentioned. Gratitude, 
for instance. How can you be fairly — not to say gener- 
ously — grateful, unless you try to appreciate the tender- 
ness-of-soul that prompted your friend's gift to you, or 
perhaps the sacrifice that made it possible ? In particular, 



Soul Transference 2J 

brethren, how can we be half-thankful enough for the 
Cross of CHRIST, if we do not meditate considerably on 
the amazing amount of Soul that went with it — on the 
tender and tenacious Love that made it possible. Some 
such thought, I fancy, was in the Apostle's mind when he 
wrote, "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; 
that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to 
comprehend . . . what is the breadth, and length, 
and depth, and height" of "the Love of CHRIST." 

"If your soul were in my soul's stead!" Oh, my 
friends, how different things would be, many ways, if we 
could only get the pith of that saying into our minds and 
methods ! 

How many barbed words would never be spoken ! You 
must have known cases where a bitter word was the last 
straw, so to speak: the cut that broke a fellow-mortal's 
nerve and composure. You didn't know that she was 
weary and worn and all on edge with a harassing day, 
when you spurted out your sarcasm or your taunt; but 
it was that way, and so it was just one stroke more than 
she could bear. Perhaps you might have thought? 

How many little discourtesies, too, would never take 
place, — and how many little courtesies would be added 
over and above! 

How many "an unsympathetic remark, too, from older 
to younger or from younger to older, would never find 
breathing-room, if only younger and older would change 
places a little more — in thought! 

And how many a wayward and disappointing child 
would be appalled at himself, and would repent in dust 



28 The Imperishable Heart 

and ashes, — could he but half think himself into his 
parents' grim experience, into their soreness and shame of 
heart on his account! 

And then, my friends, how in the world are we ever to 
tackle our social and industrial problems — except by this 
sort of "transference of mind?" It is not enough to visit 
factories and mines, and so forth, and see with our eyes 
of flesh the conditions in which some people have to 
work. We must use our mind's eyes as well, and try to 
realize to ourselves how the ambitions and aspirations and 
finer sentiments of men and women are shaped by their 
environments and by their kind of day's work. We 
must not merely put ourselves in their "places;" but also 
get ourselves, as it were, inside their clothes, and inside 
their skulls (where the brain is), and inside their breasts 
(where the heart is). We must, as far as possible, BE 
THEM (I know that is bad English, but it is the most 
expressive I can find). We must as far as possible BE 
THEM. "If your soul were in my soul's stead !" It was 
Phillips Brooks who said, "You cannot do your duty to 
the poor by a society, your life must touch their life." 

Now, my friends, perhaps you will say that this thinking 
ourselves into other people's experiences is a very difficult 
process. 

Well, be it so, — are we not manly and womanly enough, 
are we not Christian enough, to admit that, if it is diffi- 
cult, it is all the more worth while? 

Besides, it is wonderful what can be done in the way of 
cultivating this sane and sanctified imagination — this "un- 
derstanding" human touch. 



Soul Transference 29 

Pardon me alluding once more to my own experience. 
At one time, during my former pastorate, I had been 
calling every day — for a week or so — at a home where a 
little child lay dying. It came, in course, to the day which 
was to be her last on earth. We all knew it. Well, as 
I stood there by the child's bedside, I said to myself, 
'What an unspeakable wrench this must be for the father 
and mother of that little one! What must it be like?' 
And there and then I fell into a sort of deliberate abstrac- 
tion, used my imagination to its utmost limit, and thought 
myself into their position and experience: with the result 
that, for a moment or two, and by the very gift of God it 
seemed to me, I FELT WHAT THEY WERE FEEL- 
ING. It was no shadow or semblance. For the short 
time being, it was the Fact, and I was sure of it. Of 
course the wrench passed away from my heart almost the 
moment it had come, — as it did 720/ from the parents' 
hearts. But I had seen the vision. I had felt 

"The power of the night, the press of the storm." 
And, to say the least of it, I have known, ever since, as I 
never knew before, the awful desolation that is brought to 
pass when a Little Child is "taken up" out of a Home. It 
was a fulfilment, in my case, of the old Prophetic saying, 
"And a little child shall lead them." 

I say, then, it is wonderful what we can do — if we try — 
in the way of putting ourselves in other people's places, in 
the way of thinking ourselves into their experiences, in 
the way of feeling with them — that we may sincerely and 
helpfully feel for them. Try it, all of you: and you will 
find how much more interesting, and how much deeper, 
your lives will become, — -and how much more humane and 



30 The Imperishable Heart 

sympathetic and affectionate. As the Apostle has it, 
"Look not every man on his own things only, but every 
man also on the things of others: . . . that ye be 
like-minded, having the same love, of one accord, of one 
mind." 

And don't you know, brethren, that this was a large 
part of the charm and the power of JESUS CHRIST 
Himself? No one needed to say to HIM, "If your soul 
were in my soul's stead!" He was there already. He 
"knew what was in man." How adroitly and accurately 
He read men's minds! How thoughtfully and under- 
standing^ and charitably He spelled out the secrets of 
their hearts ! In so much, you remember, that the Samari- 
tan woman, who so direly needed His pity and His grace, 
hailed her fellow-town's-folk almost gladly with, "Come, 
see a man, which told me all things that ever I did." 

And the Best Friend of human kind, that most search- 
ing — but most gentle — Comrade of the human heart, is 
"the same yesterday, and today, and for ever." So that 
you and I — each one of us — can say to HIM, with all 
confidence, "Thou understandest my thought afar off;" 
and can say to HIM, with whatever penitence — yet with 
glad assurance (let us hope), "Lord, Thou knowest all 
things : Thou knowest that I love Thee." 



Ill 

THE EVERLASTING NOW 

ff Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day 
of salvation." — II Corinthians VI, 2. 

' I ' HE Apostle is trying to impress upon the minds of his 
readers the importance, the dignity, the sanctity of 
the Gospel Ministry: "the ministry of reconciliation," he 
calls it. He wishes them to understand, in some measure, 
the wonderfulness and the winsomeness of the grace of 
God. Nay more, as they are freely 'receiving' the gift of 
God's grace, by all means let them not receive it "in 
vain :" let them take hold of it with both hands, and make 
it count in their lives. There is nothing to be gained 
by waiting. The Father was never more willing, and 
they were never more needy nor more ready, than right 
now. There can be no more favorable opportunity than 
the present. There is no more acceptable "time" — no 
time more likely to be the time than today. And so, at 
this point, the Apostle throws in a parenthesis, quoting 
from the prophet Isaiah, "For He saith, I have heard 
thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have 
I succoured thee: behold, Now is the accepted time; be- 
hold, Now is the day of salvation." 

He throws in that parenthesis. Yes, only a parenthesis : 
but, like many another Scriptural parenthesis, it has point 
and pith and power. And the point and pith and power 
of it are focussed for us in the single word "NOW," — 
"Now is the accepted time; . . . Now is the day of 
31 



32 The Imperishable Heart 

salvation." 

"There is a tide in the affairs of men 
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; 
Omitted, all the voyage of their life 
Is bound in shallows and in miseries." 

The Golden Age has been put by some in the far past; 
by others in the far future. Well, if we are to think of 
the Golden Age as a time of undisturbed ease and un- 
broken plenty and assured and universal peace, then — ob- 
viously — it is either past or to come. But, if we will 
think and speak of the Golden Age in terms of Oppor- 
tunity, then we may know for sure that it is always with 
us — the "Everlasting Now." 

Of course, my friends, you will understand that, in the 
passage before us, St. Paul does not merely mean that the 
present life is the season of grace, and that there will be 
no farther opportunity — no 'other chance' — in the life to 
come. That may or may not be : we cannot tell. But St. 
Paul here is not speaking theologically. He is speaking 
humanly and practically: and he says, in effect, The time 
to take hold of the grace of God and make it count in our 
lives — the time to follow our best impulses and to do our 
best work — is always right NOW. No use proposing, 
like Felix, to wait for "a convenient season." The con- 
venient season is already here. 

To be sure, we cannot do everything at once ; and there 
are certain developments of our life-plans and life-tasks 
that take time and that we should be unwise to hurry. 
And so we have the word of the Hebrew prophet, "For 



The Everlasting Now 33 

the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it 
shall speak, and not lie; though it tarry, wait for it:" 
and this other word of another Hebrew prophet, "He that 
believeth shall not make haste." Yes, it is a great thing to 
learn the art of 'waiting.' Jesus Himself said on several 
occasions, "My time is not yet come;" meaning that the 
time of the crisis — the day of the Cross — was yet ahead of 
Him. And so, brethren, in trying to get at the heart of 
our little text this morning, we must not lose our sense of 
proportion, nor fail to keep the balance. 

But after all has been said about possible misinterpre- 
tations of the passage before us, we know perfectly well 
what it means — in all the incisiveness of it and in all the 
inclusiveness of it. "NOW is the accepted time; . . 

NOW is the day of salvation." It applies to each 
and every day of our lives, and to every hour of every 
day: that the time to grasp and use God's grace, the time 
to be true to the best that we know, the time to do our best 
in our best way, the time to 'save' ourselves from all that 
is unworthy of us, is precisely the time at which we hap- 
pen to be, — Today and not Tomorrow. 

The thing is so obvious, my friends : and yet we blunder 
along in a series of hopeless procrastinations. We are go- 
ing to "get around" to this and that some day: which 
means, in ever so many cases, that we never get around to 
it. O, how many letters we have failed to answer, how 
many helpful words we have failed to speak, how many 
visits of encouragement we have failed to make, how many 
'spoiled chances' are in our records — because we put off 
until it was too late! "Do it now" is the rule for all 



34 The Imperishable Heart 

such opportunities. "The days," says Emerson, "are ever 
divine . . . They are of the least pretension, and of 
the greatest capacity, of anything that exists. They come 
and go like muffled and veiled figures, sent from a distant 
friendly party; but they say nothing; and if we do not 
use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away." 

To my young friends especially — those of them (I 
mean) who have some spark of ambition — (to my young 
friends especially) I should like to say, with the Apostle, 
"NOW is the accepted time." You wish to excel, I as- 
sume, in some direction. You wish to become proficient, 
as time goes on, in this or that. And, in order to excel- 
lence — in order to proficiency, there is so much work to 
be done: three or four big books to be mastered, or thirty 
or forty points of detail to become familiar with, or the 
like. But, you are saying to yourself, there is plenty of 
time: youth comes but once: some day I'll get down to 
hard work. No, my young friend, the chances are you 
will never get down to hard work if you don't DO IT 
NOW. 

Some of the tasks in front of you may look enormous, 
and may have the reputation of being exceedingly heavy 
and irksome. Well, to say the least of it, to put off 
tackling them will not make them any easier. And, 
moreover, it is wonderful how, once you get clearly under 
way with a bit of work, many of the apprehended diffi- 
culties vanish and much of what you expected would be 
irksomeness becomes positively exhilaration. 

Let me give you a little bit of my own experience (and 
I know very well that many a preacher could tell you the 
same sort of thing). When I began my ministry, over in 



The Everlasting Now 35 

the Old Country, I used to put off my sermon-writing till 
dangerously near the end of the week: partly out of a 
kind of fear, and partly because I seemed to assume that I 
must wait for the inspiration to take place. The conse- 
quence was, a terrible congestion of work in the last forty- 
eight hours of the week, and not getting to bed till three 
or four o'clock on Sunday morning. By and by I made 
up my mind that that would not do : and for several years 
past I have made it a point to start the sermon-writing 
each week on Wednesday morning at latest, and — if prac- 
ticable — on Tuesday morning. Inspiration or no inspira- 
tion, message or no message, I sit down and make a start ; 
and then the way opens up marvellously. The conse- 
quence has been that, instead of that part of my work as 
a minister being — as it used to be — a burden and a bore, 
it is now (with all its exactions and its strain) the joy 
of my life. And however poor and partial my attempts to 
preach the Everlasting Gospel may be, I feel, at least, that 
from week to week I am being fair to myself and fair to 
you and fair to the Master by 'taking occasion by the 
hand' and not procrastinating till the eleventh hour. You 
may take that little frank piece of autobiography for what 
you think it is worth. Anyhow, when I say to you young 
people, "Do it now," I speak that I do know. 

And then, brethren, when it comes to the higher 
reaches of life — to our growth in grace — to our distinc- 
tively spiritual achievements, unquestionably the time is 
NOW. No soul of man — good, bad, or indifferent — is 
standing still. We are all moving, — in some direction or 
other: up or down. Each new day, therefore, takes us a 
a little farther on our way — up or down. ... Don't 



36 The Imperishable Heart 

you see, then, that if a man happens to be going down, no 
matter by what apparently slow degrees, the time for him 
to turn about and get on to the up-grade is Today, not 
Tomorrow. It will be more difficult — tomorrow. There 
will be more steps to retrieve — tomorrow. And then, 
there is always the chance that Tomorrow will be too 
late. "That thou doest, do quickly." . . . You all 
remember how Felix said to Paul, as Paul "reasoned" 
with him "of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to 
come," "Go thy way for this time; when I have a con- 
venient season, I will call for thee." Well, so far as we 
know the "convenient season" never came. Felix let the 
opportunity of his life go by for ever. 

O yes, for getting into harmony with the will of God — 
for getting into line with Christ — for making the most of 
yourself, "NOW is the accepted time; . . . NOW 
\s the day of salvation." . . . 

But there are two lines of resistance along which wc 
are mostly all moving. There are two considerations — or 
sets of circumstances — which are apt to persuade us away 
from holding and living-by the truth of our text. I mean 
^to put them briefly) the Trivialities of life and the 
Trials of life. 

There are the Trivialities of life. I mean that some 
individuals are perpetually imagining — if not hinting — 
that, were their circumstances more congenial, were their 
surroundings more inspiring, were their opportunities more 
conspicuous, they could do immensely better than they are 
doing at present with their small and trifling tasks. Well, 
brethren, there are, I believe, some people who are 



The Everlasting Now 37 

not in their right places in this world, some people 
who would certainly do better than they are doing in more 
congenial and more encouraging situations. But, I tell 
you, in the vast majority of cases it is precisely where we 
are — Here and Now — that we mortals must "win our vic- 
tories or suffer our defeats." You remember how Jesus 
said, "He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful 
also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust 
also in much." It has been said of Charles Kingsley (one 
of the healthiest spirits who ever lived), that "In all things 
. . . he would do the duty that lay nearest him, 
believing that God had put it nearest him." Ay, there is 
the secret of success: seeing the hand of God in your life, 
taking your life-tasks as the appointment of the Father, — 
no matter how inconspicuous and apparently unimportant 
your place may be. Lincoln rose to fame and to large use- 
fulness, because he was wise enough and humble-minded 
enough not to "kick" at having to be brought up in a 
log-cabin, and because he made the shanty a study and read 
the world's best books there. O, my friends, I 

know well enough how depressing and de-vitalizing some 
folks' circumstances are. Don't think me callous or 
inconsiderate or unsympathetic : I trust I am not that. But 
I know what I am talking about : and, I say, the question 
is just this, if it is inevitable that you cannot at present 
alter your circumstances, are you going to allow the uncon- 
geniality and the inconspicuousness of your circumstances 
to take the heart out of you altogether and to make a 
grumbler and a failure of you, or are you saying to your- 
self, 'NOW is the accepted time: NOW is the day of my 
salvation : I will win out in spite of my circumstances ; I am 



38 The Imperishable Heart 

going to be their master, not they mine' ? . . . I came 
across this the other day (it is beautifully wise), "Never 
fancy you could be something if only you had a different 
lot and sphere assigned to you. The very things that 
you most deprecate, as fatal limitations or obstructions, are 
probably what you most need. What you call hindrances, 
obstacles, discouragements, are probably God's opportuni- 
ties." 

Then, besides the Trivialities of life, there are the Trials 
of life blinding us frequently to the supreme importance of 
TODAY. Especially, I should be inclined to say, the 
little, oft-repeated vexations of our common days. For 
we have no difficulty in seeing and understanding that the 
days of our big trials are important days : yes, 'days of sal- 
vation.' But what about the little bafflings and worries? 
You know, the most excruciating discomfort that you could 
experience would be to be made fast in a particular place 
and to have water made to drop, drop, drop on the same 
spot of your naked body for hours and hours together In 
fact, that has been a form of torture used by those who 
have been ingenious in devising such things. What, then, 
about the little trials that drop, drop, drop on the same spot 
of your soul every day? — Your little physical disabil- 
ity, it may be, — so that you are never in perfect health 
and perfect spirits: or the daily nag-nag-nagging in your 
home, it may be: or your having to work with some one 
who is perpetually aggravating you by his want of brains 
or want of heart? And so forth and so on. 'Why!' — you 
say to yourself — 'I shall never make anything of my life, 
I shall never realize myself, I shall never know the "sal- 
vation" of acquiring the mind of Christ, — so long as things 



The Everlasting Now 39 

are as they are with me: I must be out of all this first.' 
But, no, my friend: ten chances to one never will you 
realize yourself — never will you come to the mind of 
Christ — if you do not at least begin to try right NOW, 
right in the thick of those daily bafflings and worries. . 

. . Besides, as a matter of plain common sense, which 
is better: — to play the man amid life's irritations and in- 
hospitalities, or to give in and confess oneself beaten? 

Mark you this, too, brethren : the heroism of the incon- 
spicuous places must often be, in God's sight, as magnifi- 
cent and as praiseworthy as the heroism of the conspicu- 
ous places. There are scores of young men these days — 
the flower of their respective countries — winning theii 
laurels on the battlefields of Europe. But they are out 
with the big battalions, in a big way, and in a big cause. 
Yes, but what about the mothers and sisters and sweet- 
hearts at home, who have bade these young men goodbye 
with smiles of encouragement which likely cost them days 
and nights of tears, who are probably living now — many 
of them — on scant fare, and who never know but what the 
next news will be that some of their loved ones have been 
killed in battle and their corpses pushed into the cold 
trenches? Truly, as the Book says, "Kings of armies did 
flee apace: and she that tarried at home divided the spoil." 
Yes, indeed, there is a 'share of the spoil' for you — a share 
of the honor — a share of Humanity's approval and of God's 
approval — for you, right where you are, if you are hang- 
ing-in to your appointed tasks, and bearing bravely "the 
petty round of irritating concerns and duties." 

And so, for each and all of us "NOW is the accepted 
time; . . . NOW is the day of salvation." 



40 The Imperishable Heart 

"We need not bid, for cloister'd cell, 
Our neighbor and our work farewell, 
Nor strive to wind ourselves too high 
For sinful man beneath the sky : 

The trivial round, the common task, 
Would furnish all we ought to ask, — 
Room to deny ourselves; a road 
To bring us daily nearer God. 

Seek we no more ; content with these, 
Let present Rapture, Comfort, Ease, 
As Heaven shall bid them, come and go : — 
The secret this of Rest below.'' . . . 

And then, my friends, one word more. "NOW is the 
accepted time" for being kind and helpful to one another: 
not after death has broken our fellowship. A friend of 
mine in the Old Country (a School Principal) once told 
me that an acquaintance of his, who was subject to great 
fits of depression, called upon him one evening to "visit" 
with him. My friend happened to be unusually busy that 
evening with some school reports, and he dismissed his 
acquaintance rather more abruptly than was his wont. 
Next morning he heard, to his utter dismay and confusion, 
that the fellow had made away with himself shortly after 
leaving his rooms. It was too late, then, to have the 
"visit" which might have steadied and cheered the man of 
moods. 

And I remember how one of our theological professors 
used to tell us that at one time, when he had been a Sun- 



The Everlasting Now 41 

day School teacher, one of his pupils was absent for several 
Sundays in succession. Time and again it occurred to him 
that he ought to call and ask for the boy : but he didn't do 
it, — until, one day, he heard that the boy was dead. I 
think I hear that able man yet telling us, in his usual 
calm and deliberate and pointed way, how cut and how 
utterly humiliated he was by that happening. He had 
waited too long. He had lost a great opportunity. He 
had omitted to DO IT NOW. 

O, my friends, let us not wait till people are in their 
graves — to speak kindly of them and to wish them well. 
Better than flowers on their caskets when they 
have passed on into the night will be words of encourage- 
ment and good cheer while they are yet bearing the bur- 
den and heat of the day. Better — far better — than a host 
of friends to accompany their corpses to the cemetery will 
be a host of friends to support them and to give them heart 
and hope along the highway of life. 

"NOW is the accepted time; . . . NOW is 
the day of salvation." Yes, surely there is never a day 
— never an hour — when it is not precisely and expressly 
the very time to be kind and encouraging and cheering and 
helpful. "I shall pass through this world but once. Any 
good therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can 
show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not 
defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again." 
"If you have gracious words to say, 
Oh, give them to our hearts today." 



IV 

THE ONE MASTER 

"One is your master, even Christ." — Matthew XXIII, 
IO. 

* I K HE pith and point of our Lord's well-known saying 
that "no man can serve two masters" come from the 
fact that every man must serve one master. For, if it be 
true that man is born to rule, — born with the power of 
initiative, and with the faculty of taking command, and 
with the ability to achieve and to excel ; it is also true that 
man is born to serve, — that, in order to the largest and 
richest kind of life, he needs to come under the spell and 
power of some higher command, or of some pursuit or per- 
sonality. Indeed it has been said that no man is fit to com- 
mand who has not first learned to obey, that no man is fit 
to rule who has not first learned to serve. "He that loseth 
his life . . . shall find it." He that loses himself — 
gives himself unreservedly — to the highest ideals and the 
purest purposes 'finds himself,' realizes himself, comes to 
his own. 

And so the Christ says, further, with great plainness, 
"One is your Master — even CHRIST." So that, if you 
can say, "My heart's right there; my life is centered there; 
my affections and plans are all f ocussed there — in Christ :" 
if you can say these things, your life is no longer a con- 
glomeration of unrelated fragments, but a unity. 

And then, as the Apostle says, 'whether you eat, or 
drink, or whatsoever you do, you will do all to the glory of 
42 



The One Master 43 

God' Or, as he puts it elsewhere, "Whatsoever ye do 
in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, 
giving thanks to . . . the Father by Him." 

Now we are just about thoroughly convinced, these 
days, that the World is a Unity. By the harsh and unhing- 
ing circumstances of the past few months we have learned 
that "whether one member suffer, all the members surfer 
with it." 

Even so, it is part of our modern philosophy of life — 
and a wholesome part of it — that Life is a Unity ; that a 
compartmental view of life is misleading, and, in fact, 
wrong and irreligious. Life, in the whole length and 
breadth and depth and height of it, belongs to God. And 
so, once we have made up our minds which are the "best 
gifts" to be 'coveted earnestly,' we must "ask the way" to 
the fulfilment of our ambitions "with our faces thither- 
ward," and make every task and every experience and every 
circumstance bend to that search of the soul. To try 
to live a double life spells failure: for "no man can serve 
two masters." We must concentrate: "Unite my heart." 
— "This one thing I do" 

Nor is this philosophy of life — this way of taking life — 
to be reckoned vague at all. It is all focussed and centred 
in CHRIST. It is made plain to us, and made con- 
tagious and potent to us, in a living Personality. "For 
one is your master, even Christ." 

Yes I say, mark you, in a living Personality. For, hold 
what view you like of the Resurrection of Jesus and take 
what view you like of human immortality, there is nothing 
surer than that the Christ lives today — in all the implica- 



44 The Imperishable Heart 

tions and inspirations of His teaching, and in the myriad 
pleadings of His Spirit, and in the various indisputable 
conquests of His love — (there is nothing surer than that 
the Christ lives today) in this world of men and women: 
if not as vividly, yet as vivifyingly, as nineteen centuries 
ago in Palestine. Why, brethren, unless the New Testa- 
ment is just a collection of pure gibberish, it is clear that 
no one (not even any of the twelve) companioned with the 
Christ more intimately and more magnetically than did the 
Apostle Paul ; albeit he had never seen the Christ with the 
eye of his flesh — except perhaps in some mysterious fashion 
on the day of his conversion, and for but the flash of a 
moment. Even so today, there are hundreds of men and 
women who are companioning spiritually with the Christ 
every day of their lives, and who have brought their every 
thought and their every ambition and their every day's 
work into captivity to the obedience of Christ. 'One is 
their Master, even Christ:' and their lives are — each one 
— a unity, not divided up into compartments from some of 
which the companioning Christ is excluded and into some 
of which only He is admitted. 

The truth is, brethren, this is just what Religion means, 
in the first instance. The man who "gets religion" (I 
don't particularly like that phrase; but I use it because 
you know what it usually indicates) — the man who gets 
religion has grasped the truth of the Oneness of Life, the 
Unity of Life, — that it is all under the Higher Command, 
— that we cannot live fragmentary and compartmentally, 
but must serve the One Master all the time and in all 
the tasks we put our hands to and in all the experiences 



The One Master 45 

we pass through. 

Dr. Johnson (of Dictionary fame) used to say that "the 
world is full of unfortunates who have but one ailment — 
indecision." Well, Religion is just, in the first instance, 
decision : making up one's mind to go in the right direction 
all the time. And then, as Browning says, 

"Who keeps one end in view makes all things serve." 

For instance, under the sole Mastery of CHRIST we 
shall cease to make distinctions between the great and the 
small. For, 

"All service ranks the same with God : 
there is no last nor first. 
Say not 'a small event!' Why 'small?' " 
Or, as the Master Himself put it, "Whosoever shall give 
to one of these little ones a cup of cold water 

only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he 
shall in no wise lose his reward." O yes, just a passing 
call, or a brief letter, or some apparently trivial house- 
hold duty done well and done cheerfully, may be "a sac- 
rifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God." "Trifles make 
perfection," said Michael Angelo, when twitted with 
spending too much time on the details of his sculpturing, 
"(Trifles make perfection) but perfection is no trifle." 
And, in nine cases out of ten, the difference between first- 
rate work of any kind and what is not first-rate is that in 
the former the details have got the best possible attention, 
in the latter they have not. Be sure of this, my friends: 
that there is nothing (I mean, nothing decently and hon- 
orably human) — there is nothing which may not be done 
'for Christ's sake,' nothing which may not be "touched to 
immortality." 



46 The Imperishable Heart 

And then, under the sole Mastery of CHRIST we shall 
cease to distinguish too sharply between sacred and secu- 
lar. No one can read the life of Christ without being 
convinced that He regarded everything (except, of course, 
what was positively wrong) as sacred: motherhood and 
childhood, and human industry and happy human inter- 
course, and the clouds and the winds and the flowers, and 
God's winged songsters and God's fresh air. Who are we, 
then, that we should say only such-and-such appointed re- 
ligious exercises or only such-and-such specially conse- 
crated places are sacred, — all others secular? Or, who are 
we, that we should say, 'Business is business, and religion 
has nothing to do with it;' or, 'Religion is religion, and 
"The Lord will provide" whether we apply business meth- 
ods to Church affairs or not ?' Why, brethren, that com- 
partmental view of life is one of the most mischievous 
things imaginable, and cuts at the very sinews of genuine 
godliness. ... Of course there is such a thing as 
incongruity. No man with a sense of the fitness of things 
would think of discussing a business deal during the time 
of a prayer in the Sanctuary. That would be highly in- 
congruous. But on the other hand, a man may serve 
God as effectively through a series of honorable business 
deals as by scrupulously regular attendance at Church or- 
dinances. It is Charles Lamb who writes, in one of his 
famous essays, "I own that I am disposed to say grace upon 
twenty other occasions in the course of the day besides my 
dinner. I want a form (of grace) for setting out upon a 
pleasant walk, for a moonlight ramble, for a friendly meet- 
ing, or a solved problem. Why have we none for books, 
those spiritual repasts — a grace before Milton — a grace 



The One Master 47 

before Shakespeare ... ?" . . . and so on in 
the same strain. Wholesome teaching, in good sooth. For, 
those who have the CHRIST for their Master in every 
region of life — those who are minded to "do all to the 
glory of God" — will see a sanctity 

"in the stars above, 

"The clods below, the flesh without, the mind 

"Within, the bread, the tear, the smile." 

And they will find it difficult to allow any questionable 

custom in their businesses, or any questionable pleasures in 

their lives. 

And so I would say, further, that the undisputed and 
accepted Mastery of the CHRIST will enable us to see 
things in their proper proportion, and to have them rightly 
correlated in our lives. 

Worship and Work, for instance. How often we "halt 
between two opinions" — and get nothing substantial done 
— because we do not apprehend the Unity of the Christ- 
touched life! We are not sure, on the one hand, just how 
much thought and time we should give to spiritual self- 
culture; and, on the other hand, just how much thought 
and time we should give to what is called nowadays social 
service. Well, the thing is solved in the life of Jesus. He 
certainly did not neglect Prayer: time and again we read 
of His retiring to 'refresh His spirit' and get nearer God 
in prayer. But we read also of His 'going about doing 
good' — of His 'going about all the cities and villages, 
teaching and preaching . . . and healing . . . 
And these, the prayer life and the practical life 



48 The Imperishable Heart 

were not two things with Him, — apart and unre- 
lated: they were one, — the one God-filled and God- 
revealing and God-ward Life. Even so, my friends, 
when, under the spell of the Mastery of Christ, we 'see 
life steadily, and see it whole,' we should have no difficulty 
in preserving the balance between worship and work, be- 
tween aspiration and activity, between the pursuit of per- 
sonal sanctity and the ambition to be useful. The thing 
is to get up high enough, like Jesus Himself, — where we 
can see the one-ness of these two aspects of the Christian 
life. Then we shall escape many a perplexity and solve 
many a problem, just as (to borrow an illustration of Phil- 
lips Brooks's) "the eagle flying through the sky is not wor- 
ried how to cross the rivers." 

And so, too, my friends, we shall see — from that lofty 
atmosphere — from the view point of the Christ — (we 
shall see) that what we are inclined to call obstructions 
and hindrances and annoyances are often not so, but are part 
of the plan — may be, indeed, "direct means" of both per- 
sonal spiritual culture and sacrificial-service-of-our-breth- 
ren-of-mankind. It was somewhat against the grain, with 
Jesus and His disciples, that they "must needs go through 
Samaria" ('for the Jews had no dealings with the Sa- 
maritans') on their way North from Judea to Galilee. 
Yes, but that journey "through Samaria" was a memorable 
one: it gave us some of the most beautiful and far-reach- 
ing sayings of Jesus, and a whole community was con- 
verted. Just let me quote to you the sentence I quoted 
to you the other Sunday evening and which I have type- 
written and hung up in my Study, "What you call hin- 
drances, obstacles, disappointments are probably GOD'S 



The One Master 49 

OPPORTUNITIES." ... I do not forget, to be 
sure, that "much of the best piety of the world is ripened, 
not under sorrow, but under joy." Yes, there are, as the 
Book of Ecclesiastes says, both "a time to weep, and a 
time to laugh." But that is just what I want to be at: 
that both sorrow and joy — both joy and sorrow — go to 
make up the Unity of the ideal life; that we may pass 
through them both "to the glory of God ;" that we should 
neither suspect our joys nor strangle our sorrows, but let 
both 'have their perfect work' with us. . . . 

Now, brethren, there is scarcely any truth — be it ever 
so wholesome and ever so sublime — which has not been 
exaggerated and distorted. And so it has been with the 
truth I am trying to impress upon you today. 

Life should be a Unity. Yes. And so, it has been said, 
we may see God in the stars as clearly as in the saints; 
and we may worship God in the fields and on the hill- 
slopes and by our hearth-stones, as sincerely and success- 
fully as we can in any appointed Sanctuary 'with a multi- 
tude that keep holy day;' and we may be just as sincere 
Christians at a game of pool as in a Mission Study Class ; 
and so on. Indeed, it has been put — rather extremely — in 
this way, — that God is in a crust as surely as He is in the 
Christ. 

But, my friends, we are not going to lose our sense of 
perspective, are we ? St. Paul says, you remember, "Covet 
earnestly the best gifts." He speaks, too, of the "things 
that are more excellent." And we ourselves imply, by a 
phrase we often use, that some things are more "worth 
while" than others. "Seek ye first," said the Master Him- 



50 The Imperishable Heart 

self, ("first," not in point of time, but in point of import- 
ance) — "seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His 
righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto 
you." 

The great thing is, then, to put FIRST THINGS 
FIRST, and second and third things in their respective 
places. . . . And this is all the more important, 
when the second and third things are not forbidden by the 
Spirit of Christ. 

Take, for instance, the question of how to spend our 
leisure hours — of how much time to give to our amuse- 
ments. Surely, under the sole Mastery of Christ, our rea- 
sonable recreations and our wholesome amusements have 
their place, and are entitled to a certain portion of our 
time. Yes; but what place, and how much of our time? 
These are the questions: let us be loyal to CHRIST, 
when we go about to answer them. 

"To dress, to call, to dine, to break 
No canon of the social code, 
The little laws that lacqueys make, 
The futile decalogue of Mode, — 
How many a soul for these things lives, 

With pious passion, grave intent! 
While Nature careless-handed gives 
The things that are more excellent. 

The grace of friendship — mind and heart 
Linked with their fellow heart and mind ; 

The gains of science, gifts of art ; 
The sense of oneness with our kind ; 

The thirst to know and understand — 



The One Master 51 

A large and liberal discontent : 
These are the goods in life's rich hand, 
The things that are more excellent." 

O my friends, there are big things to be done these 
days — there is a wonderfully rich and useful life to be 
lived these days, — especially by those of us who profess to 
hold-to the New Testament view of life and who do our- 
selves the distinction of saying that 'One is our Master, 
even CHRIST.' Are we rising to the occasion? Or ,are 
we missing our glorious and Christ-sent opportunities, and 
remaining on the dull levels of mediocrity ? Are we, as we 
grow older, 'surrendering the ideals of our lives,' and be- 
coming more cynical and more supine? Or, are we hold- 
ing-to our best ideals, and seeing more clearly every day 
that they can only be realized "in CHRIST" — by our 
accepting more fully His Spirit and by our giving our- 
selves more heartily to His Service of Love and Useful- 
ness? Let us make the Venture of Faith. 



SACRIFICES OF JOY 

"Therefore will I offer . . . sacrifices of joy." — Psalm 
XXVII, 6. 

p I 4 HIS fine Psalm, from which our text is taken, is what 
might be called a double-header. It is in two parts — 
of rather different hue. The first part (verses i to 6) 
rings with confidence and gladness — born of the conviction 
of God's care and help. Then suddenly — at verse 7 — the 
tone changes: "false witnesses" and "such as breathe out 
cruelty" come into the Psalmist's mind, and anxious prayer 
takes the place of the buoyancy of the earlier portion of the 
poem — prayer born of misgiving and dismay. Then — at 
the close — another touch of trust. 

Our text, then, is from the first portion of the Psalm, — 
the jubilant portion: "Therefore will I offer in His tab- 
ernacle sacrifices of joy." . . . 

"Sacrifices of Joy!" That is to say, Sacrifices (after 
the manner of the old Hebrew ritual) — sacrifices of pro- 
duce or of animal flesh indicative of gratitude and gladness, 
and perhaps to some happy accompaniment — such as songs 
of praise or the blowing of trumpets. 

It is easy to see what was meant, in the first instance. 

But, my friends, I cannot help seeing in this little 
phrase a larger content than I have just indicated, a deeper 
suggestiveness. 

"Sacrifices of Joy" ! On the first blush of it, isn't the 
phrase rather striking? Taking it out of its immediate 
52 



Sacrifices of Joy 53 

setting here, looking at it in its naked simplicity — with- 
out reference to the Hebrew ritual, and using it as modern 
speech, are we not somewhat surprised at the originality 
of the phrase (as a matter of fact, it occurs only here in 
all Scripture) : "Sacrifices of Joy"? A sort of contradic- 
tion in terms, is it not? 'Sacrifice' and 'Joy:' what have 
they in common? Isn't Joy "an easy, natural, spontane- 
ous, irrepressible thing"? And isn't Sacrifice, on the other 
hand, a hard and strenuous thing, — a thing that goes 
against the grain, a thing with not "joy" — but pain and 
sorrow — at the heart of it? How shall you and I — today, 
and without ritual, and in the ordinary course of our expe- 
rience — '(how shall you and I) "offer sacrifices of joy?" 
Is it even necessary for us to think about it? Has the 
thing any meaning for us? 

Yes, my friends, I think so; and I wi^h *o try to tell 
you, this morning, how the element of Sacrifice lies at the 
heart of all Joy that is pure and permanent and worthy of 
the name, how it may cost us something to bring to God 
offerings of Joy, — if it also costs to bring to Him offer- 
ings of labor and tears. . . . And it is a thing we 
need to know: because almost every soul of man is seek- 
ing Joy — seeking Happiness, but the thing they so name 
and so seek is eluding the vast majority of people. Why? 
Because, for one thing, so many men and women do not 
know how to make the u sacrifices of Joy." 

In what respects, then, is Joy a Sacrifice, a renounce- 
ment, a losing of oneself ? 

But, mark you, I am not thinking so much of our ephem- 
eral joys — the passing gladnesses of every day, as of those 
heart-joys which have the element of permanency in them. 



54 The Imperishable Heart 

Our ephemeral gaiety and gladness may be perfectly 
chaste and wholesome, — good to look upon and the best of 
tonics. But the real Joy of life — the happiness of the 
soul — is something deeper and more abiding: something 
worth paying for, as well as praying for. Yes, it has 
"Sacrifice" at the heart of it; just as the most sweet and 
luscious fruits have bitter seeds at the heart of them, — 
the bitter seed, by the way, being the source and beginning 
of the whole thing. 

Let me remind you, then, first of all, that Joy is not to 
be had for the asking. It will not come at our mere bid- 
ding. It is continually eluding our search, and defying 
our capture. In fact nine times out of ten the surest way 
to miss happiness is to hunt for it. 

To be sure we may encourage Joy to come our way. We 
can do a good deal in the way of making the conditions 
favorable. But we simply cannot command the thing it- 
self. It must "take place." You may open your shutters 
and pull up your shades, and have your windows fault- 
lessly clean, and have your various rooms appropriately 
painted and papered so as to get the light to the best ad- 
vantage: but you cannot make the sun rise nor manufac- 
ture the day-light. You have to wait for these things. 
Even so, the preliminary condition of all true Joy is to 
know how to wait for it. And, if I mistake not, there 
is an element of sacrifice in the waiting process : especially 
when you have to wait long, and when you see no signs 
of the coming of your desire. 

Has it ever occurred to you how seldom Jesus used 
the words Joy and Happiness : unless we except his pretty 



Sacrifices of Joy 55 

frequent use of the word "blessed," which means some- 
thing more than just 'happy'? And yet you feel — do you 
not? — that Happiness is an implicate of all His teaching. 
Not expressly, but potentially, it is promised in His every 
parable and in His every appeal; and the gift of Joy 
is at the heart of His whole message. Only, it is not a 
thing to be sought exclusively, nor as a chief end. "Seek 
ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; and 
all these things shall be added unto you." Yes, Joy is 
a thing that is "added:" a thing that "takes place:" a 
thing that joins you on the road, when you are about 
your business and have almost forgotten that you were 
seeking for happiness. 

Yes, joins you on the road — of DUTY. And so I 
would remind you, further, that Joy costs. If, in a 
sense, it is not to be had for the seeking; in another 
sense it is to be had for the striving. 

It has been said by a Swiss writer that the rule of the 
road for life is "a great duty and some serious affections:" 
and another Swiss writer — a woman this time — has put 
it so, "God has ordained that happiness, like every other 
good thing, should cost us something: He has willed 
that it should be a moral achievement, not an accident." 

Ah, we often smile when we hear the old adage, "Be 
good, and you'll be happy." But there is true philosophy 
there. It is sound teaching. For does it not just mean 
that the secret of true happiness is not to be charmed out 
of Somewhere in some wizard fashion, but is to be found 
when we have almost forgotten to think about it — in 
our appointed paths of service? 



56 The Imperishable Heart 

True, there are giddy gaieties and hollow hilarities to 
be experienced in some of the questionable by-paths of 
life. But (take my word for it, my young friends) there 
is only one place where abiding Joy is to be found. And 
that is, where Christ Himself found it: by being true to 
the best that we know, and following the Higher Com- 
mand. 

I have already spoken of our Saviour's sparing use of 
the word Joy — or its like. Well, it is a remarkable fact 
that He used that word most near the end: as, for in- 
stance, when He said to the disciples on the very eve of 
His crucifixion, "These things have I spoken unto you, 
that My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might 
be full." Yes, He used that word much near the end. 
Which means — does it not? — that the more surely He 
felt Himself, as time went on, in line with God's will, 
and the more it was costing Him to keep to the path of 
Duty (however thorny), the more confidently He could 
speak of His "Joy" and the more unhesitatingly He could 
promise Joy to others. Ay, and let me tell you that the 
happiest men and women on God's earth today are those 
who are laying down their own necks' in sacrificial ser- 
vice for the causes that are most worth while, who are 
saying in their hearts — with the Christian Apostle of old 
— "Neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that 
I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which 
I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the Gospel 
of the grace of God." O yes, some people who have 
traveled a little in the East and made a nodding acquaint- 
ance with conditions there come home and tell us, with 
an air of omniscience and a spirit of sarcasm, that our 



Sacrifices of Joy 57 

missionaries to the heathen are a happy crowd and are 
apparently having a good time. Of course they are a 
happy crowd. Why? Because they believe, and are 
living in the conviction, that Happiness spells these two 
-ays: D-U-T-Y. and S-E-R-V-I-C-E 

That is the great truth back of the well-known lines 
of Wordsworth — in his 'Ode To Duty,' — 
"Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear 
The Godhead's most benignant grace; 
Nor know we anything so fair 
As is the smile upon thy face: 
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds, 
And fragrance in thy footing treads." 

And so I must say, further, that, if some people are 
ever to know what Joy is, they will need a thorough over- 
hauling of their lives. 

"Sacrifices of Joy!" Yes, indeed! Some things 
some individuals must 'sacrifice' — some things they must 
cut out — if they are to be really glad, if they are to be 
unaffectedly happy, if "the joy of the Lord" is to be theirs. 
This or that tarnishing and gloom-producing habit, it 
may be. Or, their sourness. Or, their proneness to nurse 
their grudges. Or, their sinuous and insinuating inter- 
est in other folks' affairs. Or, their laziness. Or, their 
feverish worldliness. And so forth, and so on. Joy 
cannot live with these things — and such as these. Joy 
says to us, when we ask it why it does not tarry with us, 
"Feed me with food convenient for me: congenial com- 
pany, too, I must have, if I am to make my home in 
your hearts." 



58 The Imperishable Heart 

O, my friends, is it any wonder that some people are 
unhappy — awfully unhappy? For the worst kind of un- 
happiness — the most bitter and most benumbing kind of 
misery — is the kind a man brings upon himself "Sorrow is 
hard to bear." Yes, bereavement, and the estrangement 
of friends, and the untowardness of circumstances, and 
sickness, and the various "slings and arrows of outrageous 
fortune" (if we choose, with Shakespeare, to phrase it 
that way) are all "hard to bear." But they are only a 
drop in the bucket compared with the abject misery of the 
man who is putting Joy farther and farther away from 
him every day by allowing his better self to be gradually 
crushed out of him by SIN; and who has still the sense 
to see the ghastly truth of it all, and the conscience to 
feel the shame of it, — but ... he will not bring 
himself to make the "sacrifices of joy." 

And then, brethren, is it not the case that sometimes 
— for the sake of the other fellow — you assume an aspect 
of gladness, when you are by no means glad yourself — 
when your heart is sore? I came across a Calendar 
maxim the other day on this wise, "Look pleasant, even 
if you do not feel so." Rather a difficult proposition! 
Yes, one of the "sacrifices of joy." And, blessed are the 
souls who can bring themselves to make that 'sacrifice!' 
I know some of them. Their lives spoiled, and over- 
burdened with cares that they ought to have been 
spared: their hearts hungering for sympathy and love, 
and still hungering in vain: their dearest and worthiest 
ambitions shattered long ago, and never likely to be 
renewed again on this side of time. And yet — whatever 



Sacrifices of Joy 59 

they may feel in the secret places of their own souls 
and whatever they may be in their lonely hours — they 
are always kind and cheerful amid their human fellow- 
ships, and are always speaking the best of people — even 
of those who have ministered to their want and woe, and 
have always a word of heartening for the discouraged 
of their acquaintance. How do they do it? Well, I 
suppose it is the old explanation: — that they are "in 
Christ," that His Joy abides in them, that they are 
'abounding in Hope through the power of the Holy 
Spirit.' 

And then, brethren, doesn't the New Testament ex- 
hort us to "rejoice with them that do rejoice" as well as 
"weep with them that weep" — to companion people 
heartily in their joys as well as comfort them healingly 
in their sorrows? 

And that calls for 'sacrifice' — does it not? To be glad 
of the children's gladness; to be interested in the projects 
of the youth about you, and appreciative of their ambi- 
tions; to be really glad of your friend's prosperity in bus- 
iness, or in his family; to have no shadow of a grudge 
that your neighbor has had some stroke of good fortune 
which has not come your way, — albeit you may have de- 
served it not less. All that may seem less necessary, less 
distinctively Christian, — it may seem to involve less self- 
renunciation than sympathizing with men in their sorrows 
and reaching out the helping hand. Yet in some ways 
'rejoicing with them that do rejoice' is a nobler thing — a 
greater spiritual achievement — than 'weeping with them 
that weep.' It implies a higher reach of unselfishness. 



60 The Imperishable Heart 

For ft means that you have overcome envy and jealousy 
and all that hideous and greedy brood. It means that 
you have become emancipated from yourself, and are on 
the sure way to possessing the Mind of Christ. 

And then, my friends, have we not been told scores 
of times and in scores of ways and by scores of people, 
and do we not know, that Making Others Happy is the 
best happiness? Well, doesn't that cost something? 
Doesn't it call for self-repression and self-sacrifice — in lit- 
tle things and in great? Do you mean to tell me, for 
instance, that in wedded life (even the most ideally har- 
monious and happy wedded life) there are no self-renun- 
ciations on this side and on that? Why! it is precisely 
because some couples have come together with no thought 
of making sacrifices in one another's favor that their mar- 
ried lives are unhappy, and perhaps in course of time 
broken. Similarly, if the relations between parents and 
children — or between a pastor and his people — or between 
an employer of labor and his employes — if relations such 
as these are to be harmonious and happy and helpful, 
there must be self-sacrifice, give as well as take, on both 
sides — the " Sacrifices of Joy." 

Who is HE whom we are entitled to call the world's 
supreme Joy-Bringer? Who is HE who has done most 
to make others happy? Is it not our Lord Jesus Christ, 
of whose appearance the heavenly voice above the plains 
of Bethlehem sang, "Behold, I bring you good tidings of 
great joy, which shall be to all people?" We know some- 
thing of what He has done to cheer and gladden Human- 
ity — to "give . . . beauty for ashes, the oil of joy 
for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of 



Sacrifices of Joy 61 

heaviness." For, first of all and best of all, He has 
gone to the root of all unhappiness and has touched Sin 
with His holy touch of destruction, and made us free (if 
we will). Yes, but at what a cost! At what a 'sac- 
rifice' has our "Joy" been made sure to us! Truly, on 
the Cross He was offering the "sacrifices of joy." 
"Did e'er such love and sorrow meet, 
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?" 
And, my friends, just because our Joy has been made 
sure to us in that way — through Love going to the limit 
of self-sacrifice, — it is no shallow and evanescent happi- 
ness, ready to take wings and fly away; but deep and 
abiding. As the Christ Himself said, "Your heart shall 
rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you." . . . 

Brethren, am I talking to any man or woman this 
morning — younger or older — who has never been really 
happy, who does not know what JOY is — the indescrib- 
able and indestructible joy of the soul? If so, here is a 
question for you, — Have you made the needed 'sacrifice'? 
If not, need you wonder at the joylessness of your life! 

"I will offer . . . the sacrifices of joy:" then — 
"I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord." 



VI 

ARE WE ALL SINNERS? 

"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves." — 
I John i, 8. 

\X^E are accustomed to think of the season of Lent 
as being a suitable time for self-examination, a suit- 
able time for taking — so to speak — a moral and spiritual 
inventory of ourselves. Where do we stand with God? 
How far have we gone in our emancipation from evil? 
Where are we in the way of moral and spiritual progress ? 

We know, indeed, that self-examination may be over- 
done; may become a habit of morbid introspection, — not 
wholesome but harmful. "To watch one's soul all the 
time, seeking for moral disease, is as bad as to watch one's 
body all the time, seeking for physical disease." And, 
after all, the uplook and the outlook are better than the 
inlook. 

But surely there is a wise and wholesome and helpful 
type of self-examination. And surely also it is greatly 
needed by us in these days of haste and of "the world" 
being so much "with us." You recollect how the Book 
here says, "Let a man examine himself." And, when we 
ask God — in the familiar language of the Psalm — to 
"search us and know our hearts" and to "try us and know 
our thoughts," we are, to all intents and purposes, asking 
for grace to search ourselves and know our own hearts 
and to try ourselves and know our own thoughts. 

Well then, if, in making our moral and spiritual in- 
62 



Are We All Sinners? 63 

ventory, "if we say that we have no sin, we deceive 
ourselves, and the truth is not in us." 

"We deceive ourselves !" To deceive the other fellow 
is bad enough: to deceive oneself is worse in many ways. 
To deceive the other fellow is treachery: to deceive one- 
self is tragedy. For it is the end of all sincerity: it is 
the end of all progress along the higher lines. 

And, verily, we do "deceive ourselves" — "if we say 
that we have no sin" (that is, if we "say" it in our hearts 
— if we try to persuade ourselves that it is so). For, as 
Phillips Brooks has said, "When a man sees himself, he 
always sees sin." 

Now, it has frequently been said (not so frequently 
these days, perhaps, as it used to be : but we are not in all 
respects wiser than our predecessors) — it has frequently 
been said that we shall never really understand our need 
of CHRIST, and that we shall never really appreciate the 
wonder and the worth of His redeeming work, until we 
have a proper sense of Sin. As the well-known hymn 
has it, 

"Convince us of our sin, 

Then lead to Jesus' blood, 
And to our wondering view reveal 
The secret love of God." 

Well, it seems to me that a proper sense of Sin is 
largely lacking, these days, in many quarters, — a proper 
sense of the horror of it, and the subtlety of it, and the 
pervasiveness of it, and of its presence — in greater or 
less degree — in these human lives of ours without excep- 
tion. To a large extent the men and women of today 



64 The Imperishable Heart 

dislike the word "sin," and have dropped it from their 
vocabulary; and they are finding longer and more innoc- 
uous words for it. A fellow does not "sin" now-a-days: 
he makes a moral aberration. A fellow is not a "sinner" 
now-a-days: he is a paranoiac, or something of that sort. 

But, brethren, there is no other word in the language 
that can take the place of the little word "Sin." There 
is no other word that can compare with it for incisive- 
ness, and for comprehensiveness, and for solemnity of re- 
ligious significance. 

And let me tell you that this little word — or one or 
other of its immediate derivatives — (not to speak of 
words like 'iniquity' and 'wickedness' and 'trespass' and 
'transgression' and 'unrighteousness') — this little word 
occurs something like 700 times in these Scriptures, — 
over 200 times in the New Testament alone. 

What then? "If we say that we have no sin, we de- 
ceive ourselves." 

For, brethren, there has only been ONE, of Whom 
it could be said that He "knew no sin" and "did no sin," 
and Who could say — for Himself — "Which of you con- 
victeth me of sin?" 
"But Thee, but Thee, O sovereign Seer of time, 

But Thee, O poets' Poet, Wisdom's tongue, 

But Thee, O man's best Man, O love's best Love, 

O perfect life in perfect labor writ, 

O all men's Comrade, Servant, King, or Priest, — 

What if or yet, what mole, what flaw, what lapse, 

What least defect or shadow of defect, 

What rumor, tattled by an enemy, 

Of inference loose, what lack of grace 



Are We All Sinners? 65 

Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's, or death's — 
Oh, what amiss may I forgive in Thee, 
Jesus, good Paragon, thou Crystal Christ?" 
Yes, "if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves," 
and we put ourselves — forsooth — on that sublime level. 

The majority of us, to be sure, cannot say, with any 
show of fairness whatever, that "we have no sin." We 
are all too conscious that we "have" a considerable 
amount of it; and perhaps we are willing to say so quite 
frankly. Anyhow, before GOD we are abashed and 
humbled. And, when it comes to a question of our 
deserts, we are about minded to say, with Robert Louis 
Stevenson, "One need not complain of a pebble in the 
shoe, when by mere justice one should rot in a dungeon." 

The fact remains, however, that there are quite a few 
people who thoroughly dislike the words "sin" and "sin- 
ner;" who object to apply these words to themselves, and 
object to have other people applying these words to 
them. Either they profess not to understand all this talk 
about Sin: or else, with a certain amount of understand- 
ing of it, they resent it — and that rather petulantly. Per- 
haps they would not call themselves saints; but they art 
not going to call themselves sinners. They refuse to 
say, with Jacob of old, "O God ... I am not 
worthy of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which 
Thou hast shewed unto thy servant:" because (they might 
hint) they have not been so crafty as Jacob was. They 
refuse to 'stand afar off,' like the publican of the Gos- 
pels, and to smite upon their breasts, saying, "God be 
merciful to me a sinner:" because (they might hint) they 



66 The Imperishable Heart 

have not been grafters, as the "publicans" of Palestine 
were reputed to be for the most part. They object to 
sing, with Charles Wesley, "I am all unrighteousness; 
False and full of sin I am:" because (they might say) 
that is simply not true. They are living (they would 
say) decent, honest, clean, industrious lives; and they are 
harming no one. What more could be wanted? To all 
intents and purposes they are 'saying that they have no 
sin.' 

Well, brethren, perhaps it is not necessary that we 
should all use — every day, or even every Sunday — the 
precise words of the patriarch Jacob which I have just 
quoted; or the precise words and the precise posture of 
the publican of Jesus' parable; or the precise words of 
that particular hymn of Charles Wesley. 

Nevertheless, "if" — no matter who we are, or what 
we are — "(if) we say that we have no sin, we deceive 
ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Before GOD, 
and by comparison with the "Crystal Christ," we have 
all "sinned, and come short of the glory of God." 

"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves." 
Ay, there is the very first symptom of Sin in the man who 
refuses to own himself a sinner. Sin has "deceived" him. 
For that is a way Sin has. It deceives us. It distorts 
our vision. It spoils our perspective. It takes the edge 
off our finer sensibilities. So that we are prone to think 
we are what we are not. Yes, in many cases those who 
say, with a dash of petulant pride, 'Why, what evil have 
we done?' are just about the greatest sinners of all — if 
they only knew it: "having the understanding darkened, 



Are We All Sinnersf 67 

being alienated from the life of God through the ignor- 
ance that is in them, because of the blindness of their 
heart." You remember how Job finished up his col- 
loquy with the Almighty — spite of the fact that he reck- 
oned himself an innocent man according to the usual 
standard and counted his extreme sufferings undeserved, 
— you remember how he said at the end, "I have heard of 
Thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth 
Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust 
and ashes." O yes, the truly godly men of the centuries 
have never said — any one of them — that they had "no 
sin." Indeed it is a remarkable fact that the more godly 
and the more saintly they have become, the more pathetic 
and the more sincere has their confession of sin become: 
because, I suppose, their ideals have always been rising 
with their achievements, and they have been realizing 
more fully every day what the Perfect Purity and the 
Perfect Love must mean. . . . 

Then, my friends, will you consider such things as 
these ? — 

According to the New Testament standard, if I am 
not very far mistaken (and if I am mistaken, I am in 
amazing good company), — according to the New Testa- 
ment standard it is not enough that we refrain from do- 
ing evil; we are to get some positive good done. "Good- 
ness is energy. It is not the absence of faults (merely), 
it is the presence of moral dynamic." Which of us can 
say, then, that his "moral dynamic" is as live and active 
as it might be? "If we know the love of God," some 
one has said, "(if we know the love of God), we cannot 



68 The Imperishable Heart 

look back upon even a wasted hour without sorrow." O 
yes, so long as we are not doing our positive best, we are 
yet at least half-"dead in trespasses and sins." And you 
know that one of our Saviour's most awful words of con- 
demnation was just this, — "Inasmuch as ye did it not." 
It is pathetic — it is tragic — to see some people taking such 
good care of themselves, both physically and morally, but 
not doing a hand's turn to make themselves useful in this 
world. They are scrupulously careful — O yes: they are 
very correct — O yes: they never do anything wrong — O 
no! But they never do anything right: and I am inclined 
to agree with George Macdonald when he says that "no 
indulgence of passion destroys the spiritual nature so 
much as respectable selfishness." "Respectable selfish- 
ness!" How horrible! How utterly unChristlike ! 

Again, what about the spiritual Sins? — Pride, Con- 
temptuousness, Insensate Anger, "Envy, Hatred, and Mal- 
ice, and all Uncharitableness." Can any human say 
that he is entirely free from all these things — and such 
as these? Some people are apt to think that, because they 
are free from the sins of the flesh and the grosser forms 
of evil, they "have no sin." Brethren, there could not be 
a greater mistake. Have you ever read — discerningly — 
St. Paul's catalogue of what he calls "the works of the 
flesh," the things which disqualify a man from citizen- 
ship in the Kingdom? Well, the catalogue begins with 
"adultery," and finishes with "revellings, and such like;" 
but, mark you, it includes such things as these — "las- 
civiousness" (that is, looseness or lustfulness of thought), 
— lasciviousness," . . . hatred, . . . wrath, strife, 



Are We All Sinners? 69 

. . . envyings," and others of that order. . . . 
Of a truth we have need to 'search ourselves and know 
our hearts' and to 'try ourselves and know our thoughts' 
— ere we presume to "say that we have no sin." 

Again, what about the little Sins, — which we are scarce- 
ly minded to call "sins" at all? That is too severe, and 
as it were too august, a name for them. . . . Is it? 
You know, our African explorers have told us that they 
have not been nearly so much afraid of the lions as of the 
little tsetse fly, whose bite means fever for a certainty, 
and not uncommonly death. And you don't need to 
smash the glasses of a telescope, or give them a thick 
coating of paint, in order to prevent you seeing through 
them. Just breathe on them, and the stars are shut 
out. Even so, the little sins may do great damage: the 
little discourtesies, the little complainings, the little nag- 
gings, the little neglects, the little unfaithfulnesses, and so 
forth. Is any of us perfect, then, just here? "Keep 
us," writes Christian Rossetti in one of her prayers, 
"(keep us) from dividing Thy commandments into great 
and small, according to our own blind estimate." 

Again, there is an interesting test proposed, you recol- 
lect, in the Epistle of James: "If any man offend not in 
word, the same is a perfect man." Is any of us perfect 
just there? — never 'offending in word': all our words, on 
all occasions (both in public and in private, both when we 
are speaking to people and when we are speaking about 
people) — all our words just as true and sweet and kind 
and encouraging, and what not, as they might be: all 
our words redolent of the Spirit of Christ ? Why ! every 



70 The Imperishable Heart 

one of us, I cannot but think, is 'sinning and coming short' 
in that respect every day. Yes, you remember what the 
prophet Isaiah exclaimed, (and Isaiah was a pretty good 
man, I guess) when once he got the true vision of the 
All-holy God: "Then said I, Woe is me! for I am un- 
done ; because I am a man of unclean lips . . . : for 
mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts." 

Again, I was talking, the other day, with one of our 
ministers who has made a study of the ethics of our Amer- 
ican Economics; and he said this — he was talking about 
the methods of a certain type of evangelist — (he said 
this), It's easy enough to lash away at the crass and 
blatant sins of this Country; but the worst sins of this 
Country — the sins, too, which are responsible for many of 
the others — are its economic sins. And so, my friends, a 
man who is living a thoroughly clean and upright and 
generous life (so far as his own personality is concerned) 
may all the while be tacitly consenting to an unjust and 
unjustifiable economic situation: in regard to the matter 
of work and wages, for instance. True, it may be "in 
ignorance" that he is so consenting. But, remember, al- 
though Paul says of his life of 'persecuting' and 'blas- 
pheming' before he came to know Christ, that he "did 
it ignorantly in unbelief," he does not omit to call him- 
self, in the same passage, the "chief" of "sinners." 
There is another thing to think about — for those 
who may be inclined to 'say that they have no sin.' 

And then, brethren, finally and as the sum of all, what 
are we to think of ourselves when we measure ourselves 



Are We All Sinners f 7 1 

up with the Peerless CHRIST? On one occasion — it is 
told — Charles Lamb and some of his friends were talk- 
ing in a sort of gay fashion, about how they would feel 
and act if some of the greatest of the dead were to appear 
suddenly among them in flesh and blood. 'If Plato 
entered the room? or Shakespeare? or Milton?' — and so 
on. Then some one asked, 'And if CHRIST entered 
this room?' Whereupon Lamb suddenly changed his 
tone and stuttered out, as his manner was when moved, 
"You see, if Shakespeare entered we should all rise. If 
HE appeared, we must kneel." 

Enough said! 
"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, 
and the truth is not in us. 

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just 
to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from 
all unrighteousness." 

"Convince us of our sin, 

Then lead to Jesus' blood." 



VII 
MANY THINGS: BUT NOT THE THING 

"He did many things" — Mark VI, 20. 

TF the author of the Second Gospel was not a liter- 
ary artist born, he certainly became one when he 
reached this particular narrative — the account of John 
the Baptist's death. It is just about the most vivacious por- 
tion of Scripture you need wish to read. It throbs and 
flashes with live humanity. Extremes meet here, too: 
from the rectitude and courage of the Baptist to the 
maudlin weakness of Herod and the diabolical wicked- 
ness of Herodias. It is both lively and lurid. In almost 
every verse there is a knife-like thrust, cutting into the 
corruption of a time which greatly needed to be dissected 
with the Sword of the Spirit. 

Herod was in a bad case. He had "married" (such 
was the looseness of the times) — he had "married" his 
brother's wife, without — so far as we know — any divorce 
process having been instituted. And he was doubly in 
the wrong; because his relationship with Herodias (apart 
from her being his brother's wife) was within the forbid- 
den degrees. 

But, whereas Herodias was unscrupulously wicked and 
would stick at nothing to get rid of John the Baptist, 
Herod was not beyond having qualms of conscience and a 
certain sense of honor. So that, on the one hand, he 
"heard" John "gladly;" while, on the other hand, "for 
his oath's sake" he would not go back upon his wild prom- 
72 



Many Things, But Not the Thing 73 

ise to Herodias' daughter — to give her 'whatsoever she 
should ask of him ... to the half of his kingdom.' 

And so one of the keenest and most illuminating flashes 
of the narrative before us is in the verse from which my 
text is taken : "For Herod feared John, knowing that he 
was a just man and an holy, and observed him; and when 
he heard him, he did many things, and heard him gladly." 

Yes, "he did many things:" but not the thing. He 
amended his ways, perhaps, in this direction and in that; 
took some little new interest, perhaps, in holy things ; and, 
in all probability, he made things as comfortable as pos- 
sible for the prisoner-prophet. But he did not "screw" 
his "courage to the sticking-place" and put away his un- 
lawful wife. And so long as he was living in that illicit 
union, he could not possibly rise above a certain miserable 
level. His soul was the Devil's prisoner. With He- 
rodias renounced, he would presumably have been guilt- 
less of the Baptist's blood, and a better man in twenty 
different ways. 

"He did many things;" but not the thing! 

If you turn to the Old Testament and read the account 
of the Kings of Judah, you will come across this sort of 
passage every now and again: "And he" (referring to 
one or other of the kings) "and he did that which was 
right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his 
father had done; save that the high places were not re- 
moved: the people sacrificed and burned incense still on 
the high places." In other words, Joash or Uzziah — or 
whoever the particular king might be — was in many re- 
spects a good fellow; but he permitted the people to 



74 The Imperishable Heart 

continue their idolatrous customs, and was therefore weak 
and unhelpful in that one direction. 

Then you remember how Jesus said to the rich young 
ruler, who could boast of a remarkably clean record in 
respect of his personal morals, "Yet lackest thou one 
thing: sell all that thou hast, . . . and come, fol- 
low Me." "Yet lackest thou one thing." Just "one" 
thing! Yes, but it was a big thing — freedom from the 
entanglement of his wealth. It was the thing that would 
have enabled him to enter into fulness of life — according 
to Christ's view of life. He had 'done many things,' and 
was apparently a fine and lovable fellow: but the thing 
that would have made him an emancipated man, and a 
consecrated man, and a useful man, and a happy man, he 
had yet to do: and he broke down at the critical point. 

I 

"He did many things;" but not the thing. 

Ah, how true to human nature! What a host of in- 
dividuals there are who are 'doing many things' — good 
and estimable things, and doing them with a considerable 
amount of grace and goodwill and unselfish abandon; 
who are all the while failing to do the thing that would 
lift them out of moral mediocrity and make them "great 
in the kingdom of heaven!" How many men there are 
who are not fully realizing themselves, who are not com- 
ing to their best as swiftly and as surely as they might; 
because they are not concentrating on the 'one thing need- 
ful!' How many people there are who are not 'closing 
with Christ' (to use a familiar and suggestive evangelistic 
phrase), because some one thing in their life they have yet 
to make up their minds to renounce! O yes, in order to 



Many Things, But Not the Thing 75 

please good people and to comply — at least respectably — 
with Christian principle and Christian custom, and ( it may 
be) out of the natural amiability of our hearts, we will do 
all sorts of things, . . . except the one thing that is 
going to put us absolutely and unequivocally right with 
CHRIST. 

And then, how some people fail you at the critical mo- 
ment ! How some people have the awkward knack of not 
being on deck just when you want them and are most 
trustingly relying upon them! They have 'done many 
things,' have done their part right enough here and there, 
have helped you out well at this point and at that, — to 
your cordial and thankful satisfaction. But, somehow or 
other, just when you most need them — just when you 
are most depending upon them, they are not there; and 
their usefulness has suddenly been discounted. (I am 
speaking, of course, of preventible hanging-back from ser- 
vice). 

Then, of course, we all know how some folks' useful- 
ness is handicapped — sometimes hopelessly handicapped — by 
some twist of temper, or by some bitterness of tongue, or 
by some questionable habit. They are 'just fine' in this 
way and in that, and are 'doing many things' that are 
really worth while. But every now and again their con- 
spicuous weakness or their besetting sin gets the better of 
them, and all but annihilates, so to speak, the whole struc- 
ture of their good influence. 

" 'Tis true: . . . And pity 't is 't is true." 

But, my friends, I wish, this evening, not merely to 
criticize; but, rather, to counsel and to confirm: not 



76 The Imperishable Heart 

merely to hit; but, rather, to help. 

And so I wish to say, once for all, that I am very well 
aware how difficult it may be to do the thing in addition 
to the "many things." Do not for a moment imagine 
that I under-rate the difficulty of the process, ay the 
almost impossibility of the process — apart from the grace 
of God. (I am not in the habit of dealing from this pul- 
pit with things I know nothing about: I usually "speak 
that I do know".) 

Of course it would have been immensely difficult for 
the well-disposed kings of Judah to put an end to the 
idolatry 7 of their subjects throughout the length and 
breadth of the land. It would have been immensely diffi- 
cult for the rich young ruler to 'sell all that he had' and 
adopt the simple and small-pursed and selfless fashion of 
life which Jesus and His disciples were leading. It would 
have been immensely difficult — presumably — for Herod 
to part with Herodias and ask his brother to take her 
back again to his home. . . . Indeed the chief rea- 
son why the thing is not done, in this instance and in that, 
why the fatal hindrance is not renounced, is just the un- 
speakable difficulty of the process. Sometimes, no doubt, 
under the constraint of CHRIST, it is wonderfully easy 
— even at a first attempt. But usually, and to the "nat- 
ural man" certainly, it is difficult. Is it bitterness of 
speech that is your hindrance? You know how difficult 
it is to 'tame the tongue.' Is it pettishness of disposition 
that is your hindrance? You know how difficult it is to 
root that out. Is it some unworthy habitual gratifica- 
tion of the senses that is your hindrance ? You know how 
difficult it is to get rid of that tyrannous kind of occu- 



Many Things, But Not the Thing 77 

pancy. 

But, my friends, once our spirits have been touched — 
even ever so lightly — to the finer issues of life, the very 
difficulty of the way should be a sort of allurement: for 
surely there is a spark of the heroic in every human heart. 
"It is a calumny on men," says Carlyle, "(it is a calumny 
on men) to say that they are roused to heroic action by 
ease, hope of pleasure, recompense — sugar plums of any 
kind, in this world or the next! In the meanest mortal 
there lies something nobler. . . . It is not to taste 
sweet things, but to do noble and true things and vindicate 
himself under God's heaven as a God-made man, that 
the poorest son of Adam dimly longs." And so are we 
not really anxious in our heart of hearts to do the thing, 
when we know what it is and how to do it? We are 
told, you remember, that the rich young ruler "went away 
grieved" from his interview with Christ. And so I be- 
lieve that, in most cases, the individual who cannot 'screw 
his courage to the sticking-place' and renounce his fatal 
hindrance is sorry for himself. 

Anyhow, the first step is to know precisely what 
the fatal hindrance is. What is it that is keeping you 
from being what you might be? What is it that is pre- 
venting you realizing yourself — in the best sense (the 
Christian sense) of the phrase? What is it that comes 
between CHRIST and you? — And, my friends, even 
in the best men and women there is, every now and then, 
something setting itself up between Christ and them. 

What is it, then? Be definite about it. Be precise 
about it. No use just saying, in a general way, "O, I 



78 The Imperishable Heart 

am not good enough: I am not worthy;" and so forth. 
Why am I not? In what precise respect am I not? "When 
you are examining yourself," says Ruskin, "never call 
yourself a 'sinner;' that is very cheap abuse and utterly 
useless. Call yourself a liar, a coward, a sluggard, a 
glutton, etc., if you indeed find yourself to be in any wise 
any of these." Yes, I believe that for every man in this 
world who is not frank with his fellow-mortals there are 
three men who are not frank with themselves. Some men 
and women, I tell you, have to take hold of themselves 
far more frankly and firmly and fearlessly than they have 
ever yet done. 

And, mark you this: it may not be something which 
we ought to 'cut out' that is keeping us from the Best; 
it may be something which we ought to thrust in to our 
experience. Your hindrance may just be that you are not 
taking hold here and there as you ought. Indeed, I often 
think that, in the work of the Kingdom in particular, the 
greatest hinderers are not those outside who scorn and 
thwart, but those inside who are 'shirkers' and 'quit- 
ters.' You know, perhaps the most solemn word of con- 
demnation which our Saviour ever uttered was "Inasmuch 
as ye did it not." 

But now some one says, there is no use exhorting me to 
be frank with myself : there is no call for a peculiarly keen 
self-analysis on my part: I know well enough what my 
fatal hindrance is. . . . Very well, then: the next 
point is, Concentrate. The first point is, Be precise: the 
next is, Concentrate on the thing. 

This is an age of specialization and concentration. In 



Many Things ; But Not the Thing 79 

connection with this process and with that, in connection 
with this campaign and with that, we insist on finding 
out the strategic points, and concentrating there. 

. We need the same sort of thing in the moral and 
spiritual sphere. "If thy right hand offend thee, cut it 
off." No use scratching and experimenting over the 
whole body: it is the "right hand" that must go. No use 
'doing many things' in a more or less purposeless and 
harmlessly amiable fashion: it is the thing that we must 
tackle. At all costs, this or that must go. At all costs, 
this or that must be done. "If ye know these things," says 
Christ, "happy are ye if ye do them." Yes, and ever- 
lastingly unhappy if we don't! 

"He did many things;" but not the thing! 

Sometimes, friends, the thing to be 'done' is a very 
big thing: amounting, in fact, to a complete change of 
heart and mind (what the New Testament calls Con- 
version), a complete change of one's view of life and of 
one's attitude towards human-kind, a complete re-direc- 
tion of one's life. To use our Lord's own forceful figure, 
"Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom 
of God." As the author of "The Inside of The Cup" 
points out very pithily, that may sometimes require to 
be said to the Church as a whole: because an entire In- 
stitution may require rebirth. Anyhow it is most always 
requiring to be said to individual professing disciples 
here and there. And certainly it is always requiring to 
be said to the indifferent man of the world, to whom 
Gospel principle is a pet aversion and the Spirit of Christ 
an entire stranger. 



80 The Imperishable Heart 

And if any one asks, what must I do to be saved, — to 
be saved from this indififerentism, from this selfishness, 
from this palling unsatisfactoriness of life, from this 
thinking and planning and going in the wrong direction ; 
the answer is, Do the thing — "Believe on the LORD 
JESUS CHRIST, and thou shalt be saved." That in- 
cludes everything, both the One Thing and the "many 
things!" 



VIII 

SPOILED! 

"And when thou art spoiled, what wilt thou do?'* — 
Jeremiah IV, 30. 

T T is the nation as a whole that the Prophet is address- 
ing: using the singular number — after the manner of 
the prophets. He is forecasting trouble, — dissolution and 
shame. He is telling the people that the end is not far 
away. The Chaldeans will come ere long, and remove 
the Hebrews from their place, and sack the city of their 
pride. They will not be able to stand-up against the in- 
vaders. They will succumb. They will be "spoiled." 
And all that, largely because in various ways they have 
"spoiled" themselves: by tampering with idolatry, by 
dabbling-in and delighting-in various types of unrighteous- 
ness, — by being disloyal to God and unfaithful to their 
opportunities. The end will be confusion and helpless- 
ness and unvailing remorse. "And when thou art spoiled, 
what wilt thou do?" 

I need scarcely tell you, brethren, that the Hebrews of 
the seventh century before Christ were not the only na- 
tion which has been disloyal to God and false to con- 
science and careless of its opportunities, and which — in 
consequence — has succumbed before the persistence of a 
purer and more progressive people. The later history 
of Greece and the still later history of Rome, and the 
still later history of Spain, and what is not unlikely to be 
81 



82 The Imperishable Heart 

the history of Mexico all tell pretty much the same story. 
Disruption following upon deterioration. Spoliation from 
the outside following upon self-spoliation. Confusion and 
helplessness and failure — due largely to unpreparedness 
and to the pollution of the moral and spiritual atmos- 
phere. 

And today, my friends, some of the younger Peoples 
of the earth (younger, I mean, in respect of their intel- 
lectual and spiritual awakening and in respect of their 
baptism of modernity — Japan for instance), — today some 
of the younger Peoples of the earth are watching their 
chance. They are watching the older Peoples of the 
earth (and, mark you, in respect of intellectual and spirit- 
ual privilege this Commonwealth is one of the older Peo- 
ples of the earth after all), — they are watching the older 
Peoples of the earth, to have-at their inheritance in the 
event of their losing the vision and becoming supine and 
secular and sordid. . . . For there is such a thing as 
a false security There is such a thing as a success which 
softens and 'spoils' the fibre of a people. 

So that it may sometimes have to be said of a whole 
Nation— as is said in the Old Testament of an individual 
king, — "But when he was strong, his heart was lifted 
up to his destruction." 

Yes, the very security and success of a People may be 
the beginning of the 'spoiling' process. As Browning 
says in his 'Paracelsus,' 

"You will find all you seek, and perish so." 
"Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed 
lest he fall." For, "when thou art spoiled, what wilt 
thou do?" 



Spoiled 83 

And then, my friends, the history of the Christian 
Church and some present conditions in the Christian 
Church read us the same warning. 

If men and women are not already demanding, they 
will very soon be demanding, their rights of the Church 
of Christ. They will ask the Church to do for them 
what it was commissioned to do: to feed their souls, to 
tell them "the truth as it is in Jesus," to give them au- 
thoritative moral leading and effective moral dynamic. 

But what if the Church of Christ is allowing herself 
to be "spoiled?" What if she has ceased to "follow the 
gleam," and is becoming secularized? What if she is 
losing the breath of inspiration and the note of authority, 
and making unworthy compromises with the time-spirit? 
What if a chief reason why so many intelligent and sin- 
cere people sit lightly by the Church these days is that 
they feel the Church is dabbling in too many projects 
and not concentrating sufficiently on its main concern; 
that, in short, it is not distinctively spiritual in its ap- 
peals and methods? 

I say, what if these things are so! — and there is no 
denying they are partly so. Then, 'when we are spoiled, 
what shall we do,' — when people turn to us and look to 
us, and say, "Give us of your heavenly wisdom : feed us 
with the bread of Life: introduce us to your precious 
treasures : bring us — what we cannot surely find elsewhere 
— the touch of Christ, the healing and heartening touch 
of the Saviour"! 

Thank God, there has taken place within the Church, 
in recent years, a great awakening to her Social respon- 
sibilities. And, thank God, I seem to see the initial trem- 



84 The Imperishable Heart 

blings of another awakening within the Church, — an 
awakening to her Spiritual responsibilities, a realizing of 
her unique distinction as the Christ-Bringer to human life. 

But, my friends, I wish to apply this text this even- 
ing more particularly to the Individual Human. It may 
be so applied in all fairness. Indeed, it is searchingly ap- 
plicable to the Individual Life. — "And when thou art 
spoiled, what wilt thou do?" 

There comes a time in every man's life when he finds 
that he cannot do what he used to do. He cannot walk 
quite so fast or so far as he could ten or twenty years 
ago. He cannot see quite so well. He cannot work 
quite so long. He cannot stand late hours quite so well. 
And in a dozen different ways he feels that the wear and 
tear of life — even its ordinary and honorable wear and 
tear — have been carrying on a sort of 'spoiling' process; 
and he is not what he used to be. . . . It makes him 
think. It makes him take a sort of inventory of his life. 
It brings him to size himself up in view of the years and 
the tasks that lie ahead. And even if he is honorably 
minded to wear out to the end, instead of rusting out, as 
Kingsley used to say; yet he cannot help asking himself, 
'When I am spoiled of this alacrity and that, of this 
capacity-for-work and that, of this type of vigor and that, 
— (when I am spoiled) what shall I do?' 

And then, as in the case of a corporate People — like 
the ancient Hebrews, so in the case of the individual : the 
'spoiling' process may be unnaturally and unnecessarily 
and dishonorably hastened by unrighteousness: by self- 



Spoiled 85 

indulgence, say. Will you notice how the prophet here 
proceeds to illustrate his meaning by a picture? "And 
when thou art spoiled, what wilt thou do ? Though thou 
clothest thyself with crimson, though thou deckest thee 
with ornaments of gold, though thou rentest thy face with 
painting, in vain shalt thou make thyself fair; thy loven> 
will despise thee." In other words he instances the ex- 
perience of a woman who has spoiled her appearance by 
lust, and who tries in vain to restore her good looks by 
artificial means and so to regain the blandishments of her 
beauty. The thing is hopeless. The glory is departed. 

And there is a somewhat weird and awfully impressive 
passage, you remember, in the story of Samson, where we 
are told how, having fallen into a deep sleep (presumably 
after an amorous debauch), he was shorn of his hair, and 
awoke to find that his great strength was gone. — "And 
his strength went from him. . . . And he awoke out 
of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times be- 
fore, and shake myself. And he wist not that the Lord 
was departed from him". 

Ay, some people seem to think that they can go on in 
evil courses ad infinitum with impunity. But there is a 
day of reckoning. "The way of trangressors is hard." 
And the man of sordid life finds, one day, that he is 
"spoiled." "And when thou art spoiled, what wilt thou 
do?" 

And then, sometimes the 'spoiling' process is hastened 
not so much by one's 'spoiling' oneself as by one's being 
'spoiled.' Some boys and girls are so pampered in early 
life, so little disciplined, and so much encouraged to take 



86 The Imperishable Heart 

their own way and to indulge their every trivial whim, — 
that, when they come to face the world and to take their 
places in the battle of life, they are discovered to be sadly 
lacking in pluck and grit and staying-power. Will you 
not admit, brethren, that that sort of 'spoiling' process has 
reached the stage — in this country anyhow — of being al- 
most alarming? Perhaps the parents are fully more to 
blame than the children. At any rate, there are some 
young people I know, to whom — in presence of their 
parents — I should like to put this question, "And when 
thou art spoiled, what wilt thou do?" 

And the truth is, brethren, the question of our text may 
fairly and appropriately be asked of each and every one 
of us at the close of the several periods of our lives. For, 
as I have already said, there is a 'spoiling' process which 
is natural and inevitable and not to be called dishonora- 
ble: I mean, of course, the 'spoiling' — or taking away — 
of our opportunities stage after stage of life's journey. 

Boy — Girl! What will YOU do, when the scythe of 
time has cut away the opportunities of your boyhood — 
your girlhood: when your school-days are past, and when 
— perhaps — yen have gone out from your home to face 
the world alone ? In other words, are you putting-in all 
you know just now, are you making all you can of those 
opportunities which are yours today — but will never come 
again: so that, when the next stage comes, you will be 
ready? . . . O, what depth of meaning there is in 
St. Paul's word, "Behold, now is the accepted time: be- 
hold, now is the day of salvation!" Yes, do it now: do 
it now. Tomorrow will be too late for the things of 



Spoiled 87 

today. 

Or, you, my friend, who are in life's mid-time: bor- 
dering on the fifties or the sixties, say: you who are — 
these very days — doing the work of your lifel What 
will YOU do, when, in the course of nature, you shall be 
past your best? In other words, are you allowing the 
toil and turmoil of the world to harden you, to make you 
now such that you will be blase and cynical and increas- 
ingly selfish to the very end? Are you losing the vision, 
and forgetting to pray ? . . . Or, are you being chast- 
ened—day by day — into a deeper trust in God, and into 
a larger and more alert sympathy with your fellowmen? 
Are you increasing and abounding in faith, and in hope, 
and in prayerfulness (because, brethren, we need more 
prayer as we go on, not less, — let me tell you) ? 

Do you remember how the XCIst Psalm speaks of our 
being delivered from "the destruction that wasteth at 
noon-day?" Well, it has been supposed by many that 
what the Psalmist means by that phrase is the perils of 
the middle-aged, the soul-destroying influences of the heat 
and haste of life's noontide. Anyhow, we know what 
these influences are. We know how difficult it is — while 
mingling with the world in the course of our life-tasks — 
(we know how difficult it is )to keep our ideals high and 
our purposes pure, and to be true to our best and true to 
Christ's best. But we know that, spite of the difficulty, 
it is the right thing. And one shudders and sickens at 
the discovery (if so it be) that one's tastes have deterior- 
ated, that one's finer touches have become coarsened, that 
one has — somehow — gotten out of sympathy with the best 
things and is no longer 'coveting earnestly the best gifts.' 



88 The Imperishable Heart 

"And when thou art spoiled, what wilt thou do?" 

Verily, then, my friends, WHAT SHALL WE DO, 
'when we are spoiled?' 'Spoiled,' I mean, of opportuni- 
ties which we have failed to improve : 'spoiled,' it may be, 
of our finer sentiments and our purer purposes: 'spoiled,' 
it may be, of our interest in Christ and our enthusiasm 
for Christ. 

What shall we do, — indeed? 

Well, in the last analysis there is but one thing to do: 
and that, with all humility and with all our heart and 
soul. And that one thing is this: — PRAY, pray these 
prayers of the great Book here, "Create in me a clean 
heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. . 

. . Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation. . 

. . Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, 
and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked 
way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." 

That is the first thing to do: to throw ourselves back 
on God, to go home to the Father again in Christ's 
company. As the prophet Isaiah has it, "In returning 

. . . shall ye be saved." 

But let us not forget that "God helps those who help 
themselves." The road is open, thank God ! But neither 
God nor angel nor priest nor friend can do the stepping 
for us : we have to use our own limbs for the walking. And 
so there are some things that the "spoiled" souls can do for 
themselves. 

They can take themselves in hand. They can look the 
situation square in the face; and say, Things must be 
different. They can "cut out" this and that, if need 
be. For a man ought to be lord of his own habits: so 



Spoiled 89 

that he can say unto one, Go, and it goeth; and to 
another, Come, and it cometh. 

They can revise their companionships, if need be. For, 
although some people are thrown in our way, no one can 
dictate to us who are to be our boon companions and our 
familiar friends. And mark you, brethren, for the soul's 
need the choice of a friend is more important than the 
choice of a school or the choice of a profession. 

Then the "spoiled" souls can read better books than 
they have been reading for some time. They can go back 
to their Bibles, and to the big books of time: those books 
which make it nearly impossible for a person to be nar- 
row-minded, or cynical, or worldly, or mawkish. 

Yes, indeed, there are all sorts of chains, besides the 
gold chain of Gospel Grace, by which we can bind our- 
selves more securely to the best things and so "about the 
feet of God." 

"And when thou art spoiled, what wilt thou do?" 
O, my friends, the pathos and the pity of a Wasted 
Life — of a "Spoiled" Soul! And there are so many: some 
at fifteen, some at twenty-five, some at forty-five, and so 
on. The thought of it all is rather crushing. Without 
the Gospel of Christ, indeed, the thought of it would be 
unbearable. But here there is Grace, and Promise, and 
Renewal, and Hope. 

Yes, thank God, the 'spoiling' process may be stayed 
and in part reversed and the vanquished become victor, 
and the "lost" be "saved," — in CHRIST. 
"Rock of ages, cleft for me, 
Let me hide myself in Thee." 



IX 

CHRISTIAN COURTESY 

"Be courteous." — I Peter III, 8. 

TN these days of swift and strenuous living we have 

lost, in large degree, some of the gentler arts in which 
our forefathers of — say — a century ago excelled. The 
use of the telephone is apt to make one rather curt, and 
the reign of the automobile has somewhat altered our code 
of manners. While a large percentage of the business 
letters of today — and even of the friendly letters — con- 
tain innumerable sentences in which the predicate is not 
furnished with a subject. And so forth. 

Our excuse is, for the most part, that we haven't time. 
But after all, brethren, manners are not so much a ques- 
tion of time as a question of taste. And, as Emerson 
says, "Life is not so short but that there is always time 
enough for courtesy." 

"Be courteous," says the Book here. In other words. 
it is a precept prompted and authorized by the Spirit of 
CHRIST. 

We are accustomed to think — and we are well war- 
ranted in thinking — that Gospel grace has to do chiefly 
with the inner man, with the "first springs of thought 
and will," with the heart. Yes, but our hearts' affections 
and impulses are bound to express themselves. Conse- 
quently we may surely expect that whatever affections 
and impulses have been touched by the Spirit of Christ 
will express themselves in becoming fashion. 
90 



Christian Courtesy 9 1 

One's manners, then, should be the index of one's char- 
acter. "Manners are the shadows of virtue," says Sid- 
ney Smith. Or, as Tennyson puts it his 'Guinevere' (and 
he has other like passages), 

"For manners are not idle, but the fruit 
"Of loyal nature and of noble mind." 
Of course we know that some people are worse than 
their manners. Out of compliment to goodness they put 
on a veneer of virtuous manners, — while all the time they 
are sneaks or scoundrels. Yes, as Shakespeare makes 
Hamlet say, 

"One may smile, and smile, and be a villain." 
While there are other people who are better than 
their manners. They have an awkward and unhappy 
knack of putting their worst side out. We may take it 
as generally true, however, that a good man will have 
good manners, and will "be courteous." 

It is a most unhappy mistake to suppose that 'piety is 
an enemy to courtesy.' It is not: it is its 'helper and 
friend.' No doubt many incivilities and harshnesses have 
been perpetrated in the name of Christian rectitude and 
Christian witness-bearing and truth-at-any-cost, and so 
forth. But these incivilities and harshnesses cannot have 
been necessary; and if a rude rectitude has often pre- 
vailed, it has prevailed in spite of its rudeness — not be- 
cause of it. 

"The style is the man," is a favorite saying which has 
come down from antiquity. 

In some cases the manner is nearly everything. There 
have been individuals, indeed, who have made great im- 



92 The Imperishable Heart 

pressions in spite of their awkward methods. Emerson, 
we are told, often stumbled and stuttered in the delivery 
of a lecture, and lost his place every now and again. Phil- 
lips Brooks read his sermons very closely and very rapidly 
— with the manuscript usually held in his hand almost 
up to his eyes. But such men were giants, — the very ex- 
ceptions that prove the rule. For we all know how im- 
portant to a speaker or a singer a pleasing manner is, and 
how important style is to one who is making literary ven- 
tures. 

And so "virtue itself" is apt to offend "when coupled 
with forbidding manners." "Speaking the truth in love," 
says St. Paul, you remember, in one place : as if to remind 
us that one may be true, and yet tender ; that one may be 
courageous, and yet courteous; that one may speak one's 
mind, and yet be the gentleman. 

But do not let us imagine that Courtesy is wholly an 
affair of manner — of outward demeanor. It must be in 
the heart first. In fact the word translated "courteous" 
here means literally 'friendly-minded.' 

Yes, there is a courtesy of inner sentiment, there is 
courtesy of thought. To be hospitable to our finest feel- 
ings, to deal politely and respectfully with the best 
thoughts which visit us, to adopt — in our own inmost 
souls — a sympathetic and brotherly attitude towards our 
fellow-men of every class and creed and clime : and so on. 
That is to ensure an unfailing courtesy in our daily walk 
and conversation. 

Yes, it must be in the heart first. And so, you see, 
my friends, the best place to go to learn good manners is 



Christian Courtesy 93 

the school of CHRIST. 

How uniformly courteous HE was! Perhaps we do 
not give enough attention to this feature of His character 
and address. He is never expressly called "courteous" by 
any of the Evangelists; but it is abundantly evident that 
He was so. Courteous to the man in the street, as well 
as to the occupants of the palace. Courteous to Samari- 
tans and Syrians and Greeks, as well as to pure-blooded 
Hebrews. Courteous to the sinners and outcasts among 
the people, as well as to the clean-living and the respecta- 
ble. Courteous to His enemies, as well as to His friends. 
Courteous to His disciples when they were hopelessly mis- 
understanding Him, as well as when they caught His 
meaning in the flash of the moment. And what was the 
sacrifice on Calvary if it was not a great act of courtesy: 
an unprecedented exhibition of trust in human kind, of 
regard for the deepest cravings and the purest aspirations 
of the human heart — however encrusted and be-smeared ? 

In so much that some one has said, 'I believe from my 
heart that no one lives near to CHRIST, no one follows 
Him in 'lowliness, patience, and charity,' who will ever 
be really an ill-behaved man. He may be ignorant of 
many of the customs of what is called 'good society,' he 
may not be what the world calls 'refined;' but he will 
never be coarse, vulgar, offensive." 

O, my friends, we do not require to study hand-books 
on the usages of polite society. The New Testament here 
is a sufficient guide. The Spirit of Christ will teach us 
infallibly well. For "if any man be in Christ, he is a 
new creature," — with 



94 The Imperishable Heart 

"nobler modes of life, 
"With sweeter manners, purer laws." 

And so, you see, my Friends, as followers of the CHRIST, 
we are aiming at something better than common courtesy : 
we are aiming at Christian courtesy. 

Common courtesy is a pleasing thing enough; but gen- 
uine Christian courtesy is a bigger thing altogether, — 
broader and longer and deeper and higher. 

For one thing, it is Positive. It knows how to take the 
initiative. Some people, you know, who cannot be ac- 
cused of having boorish manners, have no manners at all. 
They seem never to be able to go out of themselves and to 
create an atmosphere of welcome and good cheer. They 
never meet you half-way, — let alone coming to you all 
the way. But the Christ-filled soul is not content with 
that sort of thing. He seeks people. He invites people. 
He brings to them the positive touch of brotherly-kind- 
ness. And the weakness of the weak and the timidity of 
the timid and the shamefacedness of the shame-laden make 
a double appeal to him. So that in the name of Christ 
and in the Spirit of Christ he makes them feel at home. I 
sometimes wish, brethren, that we had a little more of 
that positive Christian courtesy in the Church itself: for 
sometimes — even there — it is conspicuous by its absence, 
and the Church is the last place where some people are 
allowed to feel at home. And, mark you this: don't al- 
low the minister to do all the hand-shaking and all the 
inviting, — you should be able to do it far less profession- 
ally and far more spontaneously than I can. 

Then again, genuine Christian courtesy is a thoroughly 



Christian Courtesy 95 

Unselfish thing. We are often pre-occupied, we are often 
fatigued, we are often worried. And it is so easy to be 
off-hand, to be brusque, to be nearly rude in such circum- 
stances. Well, you remember of an occasion when Jesus 
was exceeding tired and craved rest, but the people fol- 
lowed Him in throngs and waited with Him so long that 
they, in turn, were weary and hungry. What did the 
Master do? His disciples advised Him to send the peo- 
ple away. But no — HE would not do that. Instead, 
he took pains to feed the hungry multiude, — doing it, too, 
methodically and more than sufficiently. O yes, almost 
anyone can be affable and cheerful when he is "feeling 
good:" but the test is to be affable and cheerful and to 
inspire others to the same — when one is "not feeling like 
it." Let us never forget, my friends, that JESUS has 
come into this world, not simply to coddle and flatter 
the natural man, but to remake him — to make him a new 
man — to enable him to do by grace what he could hardly 
hope to do by nature. 

Then, what about courtesy to our Opponents? A true 
sportsman (in athletic circles) shews the same respect to 
his rivals that he shews to the members of his own team 
or club. When, in fact, two men enter the ring for a 
prize-fight or a wrestling bout, the first thing they do is 
to shake hands. Surely, then, the disciple of Christ is not 
going to be outdone by the ordinary athlete. It is told 
that, during the war between the Greeks (under Alexan- 
der the Great) and the Persians (under Darius), one of 
the Persian soldiers thought to ingratiate himself with his 
general — Memnon by name — by inveighing with all his 
might against Alexander the Great. Memnon touched 



96 The Imperishable Heart 

the soldier with his spear, and said to him, "Friend, I pay 
you to fight against Alexander, not to revile him." Just 
so, my friends, let us cultivate the courtesy of patriotism. 
Let us be assured that "patriotism is not Christian unless 
it is sympathetic and fraternal." In other words, let us 
bear in mind that the Britisher loves his country as the 
American loves his, and the German likewise, and the 
Japanese likewise, and the Mexican likewise. He is a 
poor patriot whose patriotism consists in assuming that 
"all other nations" but his own "are to be either scoffed 
at or pitied." By the imprimatur of the Lord Jesus 
Christ we are all 'citizens of the world,' and dare not be 
discourteous — even in warfare — to any one of the great 
family of nations. Indeed, brethren, when the Christian 
peoples of the world are once convinced of that, as they 
surely will be ere long, war — like witch-burning and sla- 
very — will be a thing of the past: 

"Till, members of one Body, 
Our agony shall cease: 

Till the souls that sit in darkness 
Behold the Prince of Peace." 
Then, what about courtesy to Strangers? I read to 
you this evening part of king Solomon's prayer at the 
dedication of the Temple. Did you notice how, after 
seeking the help of God — by anticipation — for individ- 
uals who might be wronged and for the people as a 
whole in times of defeat and of drought and of pesti- 
lence, and the like, he suddenly switches off (so to speak) 
and remembers the stranger: "Moreover concerning the 
stranger, which is not of thy people Israel, but is come 



Christian Courtesy 97 

from a far country, ... if they come and pray in 
this house; then hear Thou from the heavens, even from 
Thy dwelling-place, and do according to all that the 
stranger calleth to Thee for," and so on? I have always 
been greatly touched by that interlude (as one might call 
it) — that interlude in behalf of the stranger in Solomon's 
great national prayer. And surely, my friends, in this Coun- 
try — of all countries — we have need to cultivate Christian 
courtesy towards the strangers. There are three ways in 
which we may deal with the Immigrant. We may shut 
the gate in his face, and tell him he is not wanted. Or 
we may leave him severely alone, and let him muddle 
along for himself. Or we may receive him with some- 
thing like cordiality, and offer him a good education and, 
if possible, a Church home. Which of these three courses, 
think you, does Christian courtesy suggest? . . . 
And there is another type of stranger in this Country, — 
the descendants of men and women who were brought 
across the sea against their will — long years ago — in 
chains. But what I have to say about them was said 
for me years ago by Daniel Webster. For the story goes 
that on one occasion, as Webster was walking with a 
friend in the city of Washington, a colored man — pass- 
ing — made him a most respectful bow, — Webster return- 
ing the compliment in similar fashion. "Do you bow so 
to a darkey?" asked his friend. "Certainly," replied the 
statesman, "would you have me outdone in politeness by a 
negro?" 

And then, my friends, let us never omit to be courteous 
to the Children. Sometimes they seem, in their frolic- 
someness, to be independent of our attention. Sometimes 



98 The Imperishable Heart 

they seem, on the other hand, to be almost embarrassed 
by our attention. But they appreciate it all the same; 
and we cannot be too kind to them. Only, let it not be 
patronizing kindness: we cannot afford to patronize the 
children, — we must respect them. I fancy many of you 
have heard how Trebonius — Martin Luther's teacher — 
used always to raise his hat meaningfully when he came 
into his class-room (which was not the common custom 
just then in Germany). When asked why he did so, he 
said, "Who can tell who may yet rise up amongst these 
youths ? There may be among them, for aught we know, 
learned doctors, sage legislators, nay, princes of the em- 
pire." He was not far mistaken, indeed: for there — one 
of the little lads — was "the monk that shook the world." 
And, my friends, we may never forget that 
"A little child the Saviour came, 
The Mighty God was still His name, 
And angels worshipped as He lay 
The seeming infant of a day." 
"Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones." 
And so I would say, last of all — and in just a very few 
words, let us be always courteous to CHRIST. 
We may have our various opinions as to the Divinity 
of Jesus, and as to the precise significance of His sacrificial 
death, and as to the actuality of His bodily resurrection, 
and so forth. And we do not all love the Saviour with 
the same intensity or with the same intelligence. But 
surely, to say the least of it, we are going to treat Him 
with perfect courtesy. Surely we shall give Him a fair 
hearing and a warm welcome, as HE pleads with us 
through His Word and by His Spirit, and do no violence 
to His sensitive soul. 



X 

COMPLAINING 

"And when the people complained, it displeased the Lord." 
— Joshua XI, i. 

TT is by no means easy for us today, and in our very 
different circumstances, to understand the case of the 
Israelites as they travelled from Egypt to Canaan, to 
appreciate their somewhat unusual experiences in the 
course of that wilderness journey. In many respects they 
were well "guided" and well "guarded" and well 
"graced :" God "fed thee with manna," says the old rec- 
ord in another place, (God "fed thee with manna), . 

Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did 
thy foot swell, these forty years" All the same there must 
have been not a few hardships and not a few discourage- 
ments. And so we read from time to time, in the record 
of that strange journey, of "the murmurings of the chil- 
dren of Israel," and of their 'complaining.' And it is ex- 
pressly said here that "when the people complained, it dis- 
pleased the Lord:" 

'Complaining' is one of those half-regrettable preroga- 
tives of h uman nature. It is remarkable how seldom the 
lower animals 'complain.' A lion will roar and spring 
and tear and devour. A dog will growl and possibly bite. 
A horse may buck or kick. But it is simply wonderful 
how. patient and uncomplaining, after all, most of the 
99 



; 



100 The Imperishable Heart 

lower animals are. And, strange to say, those of them 
that we fetter most securely and use most unsparingly (the 
horse, for example) are the most patient and uncomplain- 
ing of all. It has been largely reserved for humans to do 
the complaining and, in consequence, to 'displease the 
LORD.' And some of us are experts at the business, — 
. . . the more shame to us. For, among the "un- 
godly men" against whom the New Testament — in one 
part — inveighs, there are mentioned those who are "mur- 
murers, complainers, walking after their own lusts: and 
their mouth speaketh great swelling words." 

"And when the people complained, it displeased the 
Lord." 

Of course it does not always 'displease the Lord' when 
we complain. For there are complaints and complaints. 

For instance, some 'complaints' are justifiable, and rea- 
sonable, and useful. Forceful perhaps, but without vio- 
lence: biting perhaps, but without bitterness. Such are 
our righteous protests against iniquity, — against dishonesty 
or against infidelity or against inhumanity or against crass 
laziness, and the like. 'Complainings' of that type are, in 
many cases, the indispensable preliminary of progress: ac- 
cording to Phillips Brooks's saying that "discontent which 
has an ideal is progress." 

Then, again, there are some 'complaints' which are 
so innocently natural and so intensely human and so in- 
tensely pathetic, that, far from 'displeasing' the Father, 
they appeal to His compassion and to His "grace to help 
in time of need." When the stricken soul says, in the 
language of the Psalms, "Give ear to my prayer, O God ; 



Complaining lot 

* . » attend unto me, and hear me: I mourn in my 
complaint," — that sort of thing goes to the heart of the 
Father; because that sort of thing is prayer, not petu- 
lance. 

But, my friends, after all has been said, the majority 
of our 'complaints,' our "murmurings," our querulous- 
nesses are 'displeasing to the Lord' and are not "ap- 
proved in Christ." In point of fact they are 'displeasing' 
to most normal humans : because they are more or less un- 
reasonable, and more or less cowardly — unmanly or un- 
womanly. Yes, 'complaining' displeases sensible and 
sanctified humanity; and it displeases "the Lord." Why? 
Because it is wrong, because it is discordant: and be- 
cause, therefore, it is essentially 'displeasing.' 

There are some people who 'complain' as a matter of 
disposition and habit. To quote the Epistle of Jude again, 
"These are murmurers, complainers." No matter how 
things are, they will find something to grumble at — some- 
thing to "knock." As the saying goes, they will 'quarrel 
with their own shadows' if there is nothing else to quarrel 
with or to kick at. 

It is very depressing. It is very aggravating. But there 
they are — the habitual 'complainers.' And 'displeasing' — 
unpleasant — is a mild word for it all. It is despicable, as 
well as 'displeasing;' and damaging, as well as despicable. 
Remember, my friends, when it is said of any kind of con- 
duct that 'it displeases the Lord,' that means something 
very serious. It is a very grave condemnation. 

To be sure, the habitual 'complainers' usually tell us — 
to excuse themselves — that they are "built that way." 



102 The Imperishable Heart 

. . . Brethren, Jesus Christ never asked the moral 
delinquents whom He took in hand whether they had 
been "built that way." He simply said, "Repent:" which 
word means (let me tell you) 'Turn around: change your 
mind, and change your life : from henceforth be different.' 
Of course He offered the help of His omnipotent grace to 
those who should repent . . . It is all very well for 
me to say, in explanation of some innocent habit of speech 
or action, that I suppose I was "made that way." But to 
try to justify my moral distortions by saying any such thing 
would be to deny the right of the Spirit of Christ to 
change me and the power of the Spirit of Christ to keep 
me changed. 

Then, I wish to say that there are some things that we 
allow ourselves — far too easily allow ourselves — to 'com- 
plain' of, day in day out. Yet, why should we? 

For example, why 'complain' of Sickness? 

I presume the Christian Scientist would say that sick- 
ness is a sort of illusion, and that therefore we should dis- 
illusionize ourselves by ignoring it and rising superior to 
it. Well, there is a hint of Christian courage and Chris- 
tian confidence in that attitude to the "natural shocks that 
flesh is heir to." I prefer, however, to think of sickness 
as a very real thing, but an enemy to human health and 
human happiness; and, therefore, a thing to be combated 
and conquered — by one means and another. What then? 
Does a soldier 'complain' of the superior sharpness of his 
enemy's bayonet or the superior power of his guns? Or, 
does a ball-player 'complain' of the superior skill of this 
and that member of the rival team ? Nay, verily : the sol- 



Complaining 103 

dier or the ball-player who is anything of a sportsman 
wishes to win handsomely, wishes to win — if it may be — 
against heavy odds. Similarly, my friends, if there is 
anything of the sportsman about us, we shall not 'com- 
plain' of sickness — in whatever form it may come: we 
shall try to play a winning game. And, if we lose righting 
gamely, we shall not lose at all in God's sight or in our 
own conscience's sight. I was referring the other Sun- 
day to Robertson of Brighton. Well, he died at an early 
age of a very serious and very painful malady. Time and 
again, we are told, when the pain was excruciating, he 
would clutch something or grind his teeth and bite his lips : 
but he never uttered a word of 'complaint,' except perhaps 
to say, "Just leave me alone." 

Or, again, why 'complain' of the Weather? 

Do you know, to my mind there is nothing makes a per- 
son appear so utterly puny and ridiculous as railing at the 
weather and calling it all sorts of names No doubt to 
the farmer, for instance, at certain seasons of the year the 
state of the weather is everything. But — to say the least 
of it — we can't alter the weather by grumbling and curs- 
ing. (I am not prepared to assert that we can alter the 
weather by praying either: but prayer is more likely to 
avail than petulance). Besides, men are learning as time 
goes on to offset, to some extent, the damage that may 
be done by excessive drought or by an excessive rain- 
fall: (if you don't know how, ask the expert agricultur- 
ists). There is a famous saying of John Ruskin to the 
effect that there is no such thing as "bad weather" — only 
"different kinds of good weather." And doesn't James 
Whitcomb Riley say, 



i04 The Imperishable Heart 

"It's no use to grumble and complain; 
It's just as cheap and easy to rejoice: 
When God sorts the weather, and sends rain, 
Why, rain's my choice." 
And here is another wholesome saying that I came across 
the other day, "If you can't sing as you go along life's 
road, don't help the thunder to growl and drown the 
other fellow's singing." 

Again, why 'complain' of Other Folks' Prosperity and 
Happiness ? Some of us are all too prone to do that. Per- 
haps we envy our neighbors their prosperity and happi- 
ness, and make it very obvious that we do. Or perhaps 
we try to account for their success by insinuating that it 
is due to mere good luck, or even to trickery and crooked- 
ness. Well, my friends, as the Scripture says, 'Envy is 

. . . rottenness of the bones" and it "slayeth the 
silly one" : and insinuations are usually rather base 
things. Anyhow, this whole attitude — this "complaining" 
and grudging attitude — towards other people's prosperity 
and success is hopelessly wrong It is essentially un-Chris- 
tian. Are we not told, here, to "rejoice with them that do 
rejoice?" It may be a difficult thing for unsanctified hu- 
manity to do; but to those who have "the mind of 
Christ" it should be a privilege and a joy. You remem- 
ber how John the Baptist (noble man that he was: to my 
mind one of the very finest of the Men of the Bible) — 
you remember what he said, and the magnificent spirit 
of it, when he was told of the rising popularity of Jesus: 
"He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend 
of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, re- 
joiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice: this my 



Complaining 105 

joy therefore is fulfilled. HE must increase, but I must 
decrease." Splendidly magnanimous, thou man of the 
desert ! 

Then, once more I will say, why 'complain' of Crit- 
icism ? Most of us — especially those of us who are in pub- 
lic positions — will be criticised to the end of our days. 
That is inevitable. Sometimes the criticism will be fair 
and justifiable: other times, unfair and unjustifiable. Any 
way, we shall not help matters by "complaining." If 
the criticism is unjust, it deserves no notice: if it is just, 
it should spur a fellow on to improvement: so that of 
Criticism we may say, 'Either ignore it, or act upon it,' — 
but do not 'complain.' It is related of a singer of ancient 
Greece that when once he was told that the very boys 
laughed at his singing, he simply said, "Ah, then I must 
learn to sing better." And it is related of the great 
philosopher Plato that, when some one once told him that 
he had many enemies who spoke much ill of him, his 
answer was, "It is no matter ; I shall live so that none will 
believe them." Yes, my friends, we twentieth century 
Christians have not a few things to learn from the moral 
and spiritual heroes of pre-Christian times. 

Have you ever noticed, my friends, how entirely free 
from 'complaining' JESUS was — the "Crystal Christ?" 
There is no passage in His mortal career (so far as we 
know that career: and you may be sure we should have 
had the flaws pointed out, had they been there) — there is 
no passage in His mortal career to which the word petu- 
lance or the word querulous or the word "complained" 
could possibly be made to apply. 



Io6 The Imperishable Heart 

We read, indeed, of His being hungry and thirsty and 
weary; and of His being "exceeding sorrowful" (no won- 
der!); and — once — of His being "in an agony" (no 
wonder!). We are told, too, how He "marvelled" at hu- 
man unbelief and indifference. We are told, too, how 
He could be stolidly silent in the face of cross-questioning ; 
before Pilate, for instance. Nay more, when occasion 
warranted it, He could slash, and He could pierce as with 
rapier-thrusts, the sins and abuses of His day; especially 
the sins of self-complacency and self-righteousness. But, 
brethren, in the life of JESUS I see no least hint of 'com- 
plaining:' no 

"lack of grace 
"Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's, or death's." 
"O perfect Life of Love!" 

Suppose we ask now — by way of closing our meditation 
this morning — (suppose we ask), How are we to get rid 
of our tendency to 'complain?' How are we to ap- 
proach nearer and nearer to the "sweet reasonableness" of 
JESUS — to His crystal courtesy and His complaintless 
confidence in God and in Himself and in Humankind? 
HOW? 

Well, here are four points, — each in just a sentence or 
two (you can do the filling-in for yourselves). 

First, then, attend to your health. We can never set 
too much store by the healing ministry of Jesus, 
and His Gospel of good health and good cheer. I 
believe dyspepsia is responsible for at least fifty per 
cent, of humanity's crankinesses and grumbles. Some 
of us need — for our souls' sakes — to take more exercise, 



Complaining 1 07 

or to keep more regular hours, or to pay more attention to 
our diet. "A man's daily meals," says Dr. Jowett, "have 
vital relationship with his vision of the Lord." "Be- 
loved," says a New Testament Epistle, "I wish above all 
things that thou may est prosper and be in health". 

Next, — Think more of others, and less of yourself. 
'Complaining' is born of selfishness. And selfishness 
means having no outlook, having no wideness of horizon, 
having no regard for "the things of others." "Your love," 
it has been said, "has a broken wing, if it cannot fly 
across the sea." Ay, and some folks' love has apparently 
both wings "broken;" for it cannot fly across the street — 
let alone the sea. And then we know the standard that 
Christ proposes: "kind" even "unto the unthankful and 
the evil." "When I don't like folks," an American 
authoress makes one of her characters say, "(when I 
don't like folks) I try to do somethin' nice for 'em. Seems 
like that's the only way I kin weed out my own meanness." 

Next, my friends, let us study the sublime example of 
our Lord Jesus Christ. Are we really trying to pattern 
our lives after His? Or, do we stop at admiring, and 
'following afar off?' That wont do: we must take Christ 
seriously. "For even hereunto were ye called : CHRIST 

. . . leaving us an example, that we should follow 
His steps." 

And next — and last, — there is Prayer. That is the one 
answer to all such smart and self-complacent and hopeless 
sayings as "I Can't help it: I was built that way;" 
and, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks:" and the 
like. I say, that is the one answer to all such sayings and 
sentiments, — PRAYER. Of course most of us are far, 



108 The Imperishable Heart 

far yet from "the measure of the stature of the fulness of 
Christ." But, how are we to get there? Only by the 
help of God's grace in Christ. Why not, then, "pray 
without ceasing" for the increase of that grace? Yes, in- 
deed, prayer is not just pouring out our wants before 
God: rather it is opening our hearts to the Divine influ- 
ences that they may pour in, — that we may be "filled with 
all the fulness of God." The door that leads to the 
Throne of God is never closed. "To your knees, O ye 
Christians." 



XI 

WAS EVER ANYONE DISAPPOINTED IN 
JESUS? 

"And they that were sent went their way, and found even 
as He had said unto them." — Luke XIX, 32. 

f HAVE read to you this evening the portion of the 

Gospel record in which the words of our text occur; 
so that you know their setting. "Two of His disciples" 
had been sent by Jesus on a somewhat quaint errand, — 
with explicit instructions and with an unusually detailed 
intimation of what they might expect to find: "and they 
that were sent went their way, and found even as He had 
said unto them." They were not disappointed. The 
Master's words came true, and His intimations were ful- 
filled with amazing accuracy. 

It was not the first time the disciples of Jesus had 
"found even as He had said unto them:" nor was it to be 
the last time. And so elsewhere in the New Testament 
you have our Lord Jesus described as "the faithful wit- 
ness" and "He that is true." And St. Paul says, in one 
place, that "all the promises of God in Him are Yea 

. . . and Amen." 

"And they . . . found even as He had said unto 
them." My friends, was any one ever disappointed in 
JESUS ? Has it not always been the case with those who 
have trusted Him fully and loved Him fervently and 
served Him faithfully,— has it not always been the case 
109 



HO The Imperishable Heart 

with such that they have "found even as He had said unto 
them?" I have yet to know of the man or woman — 
given fair-mindedness and true-heartedness — (I have yet to 
know of the man or woman) who has been disappointed 
in Jesus. Or, as I saw it remarked the other day, "The 
religion of Jesus Christ has never proved a failure where 
it was fairly tested." . . . 

O, you may have been disappointed, perhaps, in one or 
other of the Christian Doctrines. It may have been 
crudely presented to you, so as to fail to appeal. Or, 
however presented, it may have seemed to you remote 
from common life and inefficacious. . . . And, in- 
deed, we shall do well to be disappointed — and for ever 
disappointed — with some dogmas that are asserted to be 
fundamentally Christian. 

Or, you may have been disappointed in the Church, — 
not recognizing in it "the body of Christ" in anything 
like soundness of health or beauty of proportion. You 
may have been disappointed by the somewhat worldly at- 
mosphere of the Christian Church ; or by the formality or 
the coldness or the slackness that are too often found in it. 

. . . And, indeed, we shall do well to be disap- 
pointed — and for ever disappointed — with some features 
of modern Church activity, — and inactivity. 

Or, you may be disappointed with the results of the 
whole Christian propaganda, — as if the Lord Jesus Christ 
were not 'making good,' were not 'coming to his own' 
quickly enough, were not proving worthy of the name said 
to be written on His vesture — "King of kings, and Lord 
of lords." . . . And, indeed, brethren, we shall do 
well to be disappointed — and disappointed every day — 



Was Ever Any One Disappointed in Jesus? ill 

with Results; if so be it will make us more "fervent in 
spirit" and more alert and diligent in the work of the 
Kingdom 

Or, you may have been disappointed in individual fol- 
lowers of the Christ here and there: disappointed by rea- 
son of their inconsistencies, or their lack of zeal, or their 
woeful want of loyalty to their Church and to their com- 
rades in Christ. There is great room, indeed, for disap- 
pointment here, — for chagrin, — for deep discouragement. 
Only, in all this connection let us remember the Apostolic 
verse, "Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye 
which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of 
meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted." 

For — yes — you may have been disappointed in yourself : 
disappointed because of the meagreness of your Christian 
achievement, because of your frequent lack of courage or 
of charity, because of the immense distance between your 
spiritual stature and "the measure of the stature of the 
fulness of Christ." 

Yes, in scores of ways, my friends, we may have been 
disappointed in the human way of taking Jesus, in the 
human way of treating Him and responding to His claims, 
in the human presentation of the truth of the Gospel and 
the spirit of the Gospel. But, — disappointed in JESUS 
Himself? Never! — "And they . . . found even 
as He had said unto them." 

How many souls can bear witness that JESUS has al- 
ways been true to Himself and true to His word, — and, 
so, true to them! This, you know, is Hallow-e'en, — to- 
morrow being All Saints Pay. Just think , then, of the 



112 The Imperishable Heart 

tens of thousands of Jesus' Friends who would gladly — 
could they make us hear them — testify to His faith- 
fulness, to His absolute reliability, to His sure ful- 
filment of their best convictions and hopes. When the 
aged and saintly Polycarp of Smyrna, in the second cen- 
tury, was brought before the Roman Proconsul, — con- 
demned to be burnt to death if he would not renounce 
the Christian faith, the Proconsul said to him, "Recant, 
and I will set thee free. Revile Christ." "Eighty and 
six years have I served Him," answered the martyr, 
"(eighty and six years have I served Him), and He has 
never disappointed me. How then can I speak evil of 
my King?" And I was reading the other day of a woman 
of India, named Chundra Lela, whose name is now a 
household word among the Christians of India, and whose 
face, by the way, if a photograph is to be trusted at all, is 
a study in quiet and confident faith. Chundra Lela was 
born enormously wealthy. While still an adherent of 
Hinduism, she spent practically all her wealth in making 
long and hard pilgrimages to various shrines "just to find 
God," as she said. By and by she fell in with the Bible 
and with a Christian teacher who led her to "find God" 
indeed through Christ. When she had grown old in years 
and in Christian service, it was arranged that a small 
house be built for her to end her days in restfully. When 
the retired spot where the house was to be built was 
pointed out to her, she said, "What! away off in this 
field? Oh, no! If you will build me a house, build it 
on the roadside — close up — so that when I am too old and 
weak to walk, I may crawl up to the door and preach 
to the people as they pass by." It was so ordered, and so 



Was Ever Any One Disappointed in Jesus? 113 

done; and as long as Chundra Lela lived, she did preach 
"the unsearchable riches of Christ." And when, a few 
years ago, "the door into the Other Room opened" for 
her, "she went with a shining face" Was that woman dis- 
appointed in Jesus ? . . . These are but two instances 
taken at random from totally different times. And you 
know very well, my friends, that they could be multiplied 
by a hundred many times over. 

Truly, it is not JESUS who disappoints us: it is you 
and I who disappoint ourselves — and disappoint Him. It 
is not JESUS, today, who is disappointing the world: it 
is those who are 'crucifying the Son of God afresh, and 
putting Him to an open shame,' but who — let us hope — 
"know not what they do." 

"And they that were sent went their way, and found 
even as HE had said unto them." 

In how many ways we 'find . . . even as HE has 
said!' Not that, in the varying and succeeding Christian 
centuries, every word of the Master has been literally 
and actually and in every specific instance fulfilled. But 
that the soul of His teaching is always true; ay and not 
seldom intimately and specifically true. 

How often, for instance, we 'find' and feel the truth of 
Christ's words when He states some vital fact of the 
spiritual world! Such as, "No man can serve two mas- 
ters;" or, "A man's life consisteth not in the abundance 
of the things which he possesseth ;" or, "Except a man be 
born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Why, 
brethren, we cannot gainsay such words as these. We 
cannot get back of them. There is no arguing with them. 



114 The Imperishable Heart 

We know that they are true. Every one of us who thinks 
at all could produce dozens of instances of the truth of 
them. No wonder we read that HE spoke "as one hav- 
ing authority." 

Then sometimes, again, Christ's words are pathetically 
and bitterly true; and we 'find even as HE says' in the 
pathos and bitterness of our own personal experience or of 
the general human situation. For example, these words 
to His disciples, "In the world ye shall have tribulation." 
Or, these other words to His disciples, "The servant is 
not greater than his lord If they have persecuted Me, 
they will also persecute you ; if they have kept My saying, 
they will keep yours also." Or that little saying of His 
on the uncertainty of human life and the apparent lack 
of discrimination on the part of the Angel of Death, — 
"Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, 
and the other left :" what commentaries we could all pro- 
duce on these never so simple words ! Or, in the light of 
what is happening these days, such words as these, — "And 
ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: ... for 
nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against king- 
dom : and there shall be famines, and pestilence, and earth- 
quakes, in divers places." Truly, my friends, Jesus is not 
dead : He spoke but yesterday, and He is speaking again 
today. "Today if ye will hear His voice, harden not your 
heart." 

But, to come right back to our text, how often what 
JESUS says is encouragingly and cheeringly true! — 
"They . . . found even as He had said unto them." 
These men were sent on a kindly, albeit on what must 
have seemed to them a somewhat doubtful, errand for the 



Was Ever Any One Disappointed in Jesus f 115 

Master : but they were not fooled. Even so the Master is 
not fooling us when He takes the deep look and the long 
look, and speaks calmly His great words of faith and 
promise and encouragement. How many of them there 
are! "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words 
shall not pass away:" "He that endureth to the end shall 
be saved:" "Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall 
see God:" "In the world ye shall have tribulation: but 
be of good cheer; I have overcome the world:" "And 
they shall come from the east, and from the west, and from 
the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the 
kingdom of God." What heart for us all in such brave 
and encouraging and far-visioned words! For they are 
true. Any single one of them you can substantiate up to 
the hilt from the testimony of Christian experience and 
the witness of Christian history. 

The pity is, my friends, that we do not feed on what 
JESUS says far more than we do. It was an Oriental 
magnate — not himself, by the way, a professed Christian 
-who said recently, "Of one thing I am convinced, that, 
do what we will, oppose it as we may, it is the Christian 
Bible that will sooner or later work out the regeneration of 
our land." And, surely, if the Christian Bible, then, in 
particular, the very words of the CHRIST Himself. You 
remember how He remarked, on one occasion, "The words 
that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." 
O yes, we should not be nearly so "spirit"-less, and our 
better feelings and our better purposes would not be so 
nearly "dead," if we would keep in closer touch with what 
JESUS says and try to get to the heart of it all. 



Il6 The Imperishable Heart 

And then, my friends, besides the sayings and senti- 
ments of Jesus recorded for us in this great Book, there 
are, as I have already assumed, the testimony of Christian 
experience and the witness of Christian history. In other 
words, there are the suggestions and the successes of the 
Spirit of Christ of all time to encourage us, to assure us 
that, in respect of our highest ideals and our best convic- 
tions and our holiest purposes and our most unselfish pro- 
jects, we shall not be fooled nor disappointed. "And they 
that were sent went their way, and found even as He 
had said unto them." There are half-a-dozen words in 
one of Emerson's Essays which come again and again 
to my mind: they are these, "Trust the instinct to the 
end." Even so, my friends, if the Spirit of Christ has 
taken possession of you in any degree whatsoever, then He 
pleads with you, from time to time, to think along certain 
lines, and to project your life in a certain direction, and to 
be true to your highest aspirations: and, from time to time, 
He prompts you to do the Christlike thing. Well, the 
great point is to "trust" these pleadings and promptings 
"to the end." No matter where they may lead you, they 
are infallibly right, and you will 'find even as they say.' 
O yes, men have been misunderstood for obeying the plead- 
ings and promptings of the Spirit of Christ. They have 
been persecuted for doing so. They have lost "houses, or 
brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or chil- 
dren, or lands" for doing so. They have been done to 
death for doing so. But they have never been fooled 
of God for doing so. They have never been disappointed 
by the King of Truth — who is also the King of Love. 
You remember how it is said of the redeemed in glory (it 



Was Ever Any One Disappointed in Jesus? 1 17 

is in the Book of Revelation), "And they shall see His 
face" Why? Because they have seen "His face" all the 
time. Though often "mazed with doubts and sick with 
fears," and though often fighting their way through the 
fire of hate and the smoke of opposition, they have 'seen 
His Face' — His smile of approval and good cheer and 
of promised welcome ... — "And they that were 
sent went their way, and found even as He had said unto 
them." O yes, my friends, we may trust HIM to the 
crack of doom. He will not disappoint us. Trust that 
instinct to the end. 

But I have one more thing to say before I finish this 
evening. Will you notice how it says that "they that 
were sent went their way, and found even as He had said 
unto them?" 

The only way to arrive at the Truth of Christ and the 
satisfaction of the Gospel is to go : they "went their way, 
and found." In the spiritual realm, as in most others, — 
but supremely in the spiritual realm — Obedience is the 
way to Knowledge, experiment the way to experience. 
Knowing only comes by Doing. Hearsay is not enough. 
Argument is only of limited value. And you can't 'go 
and find' by proxy. You must start out, and keep going, 
your very self. A general cannot hope to win a battle by 
simply drawing a map and studying the field from a dist- 
ance and counting up how many soldiers he has in bar- 
racks. He and his men must get there. Precisely so, 
brethren, if you and I are to 'find' the truth of what 
Jesus says and what Jesus stands for — if we are ever to 
know the inspiration of it all and the comfort of it all, — 



Il8 The Imperishable Heart 

we must, like these two loyal disciples of old, take JESUS 
at His word and go where He asks us. And you and I 
know pretty well just what that means in our several ex- 
periences: "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" 

O, the road may be hard at times, — steep and stony and 
stormy and dark — and what not. But the end is 
"righteousness, and peace, and joy," and the soul's awak- 
ening, and the vision of God. 

And remember, brethren, I am not thinking exclusively, 
by any means, of "righteousness, and peace, and joy" and 
the soul's awakening and the vision of God — up yonder. 
We may experience it all here and now : if, here and now, 
we will take JESUS at His Word, and go where He asks 
us. 

"And they that were sent went their way, and found 
even as HE had said unto them." 

It is always so. 



XII 

DISTRACTIONS 

"And as thy servant was busy here and there, he was 
gone." — I Kings XX, 40. 

HP HE circumstances were as follows. Benhadad, the 
king of Syria, had made a double attempt to put the 
Israelites to shame in battle, but had failed. Ahab, the 
king of Israel, had had every chance to make Benhadad 
prisoner; but, in an injudicious excess of soft-heartedness, 
he had let him go. It was a weak stroke on Ahab's part, 
and a wrong stroke. "Foolish pity spoils the city." One 
of the prophets of Israel, disguised, meets Ahab, tells him 
the story of his own carelessness in allowing a prisoner to 
escape, and thus inveigles Ahab into condemning himself 
out of his own mouth. 

"As thy servant was busy here and there, he was gone." 
That was the story of the careless guard and the escaped 
prisoner. It was really also the story of Ahab's careless- 
ness and of his lost opportunity. 

It is open to question whether the prophet was stat- 
ing a fact or merely using a parable. Anyhow, the appli- 
cation to Ahab's conduct was obvious. And it seems to 
me that the story or parable is, in many respects, applica- 
ble to US — to the men and women of today in America. 

"And as thy servant was busy here and there, he was 
gone." It is just a quiet, but pungent, protest against 
carelessness, against lack of concentration, against infidel- 
119 



120 The Imperishable Heart 

ity to the main task. Because we are "busy here and 
there," and NOT ON THE JOB, we miss ever so many 
of the most precious lessons of life, and let go ever so many 
of the most blessed opportunities of life, and fail to con- 
serve some of life's most strategic and important conquests. 
We allow ourselves to be turned aside from the Main 
Issue by preventible distractions, and — too often — petty 
and unworthy distractions — "Busy here and there." 

The truth is, in almost every region of experience there 
is a particular moment to take advantage of : a particular 
thing to be done, at a particular time, in a particular way. 
To allow oneself to be distracted at the critical moment, 
instead of concentrating, is fatal. 

To be used to advantage, fruit must be pulled neither 
too soon nor too late. There is something far wrong 
when the farmer neglects his apple-orchard at the critical 
moment and allows the fruit to rot, — because he is "busy 
here and there." He should not be "here and there" at 
all, but ON THE SPOT. 

Metals in fusion must be taken at the right time, if 
they are to be moulded as we wish them. "Strike while 
the iron is hot." 

Similarly there are certain of the world's harbors which 
can only be negotiated by large vessels at high tide. 

And so, doesn't Shakespeare say, 

"There is a tide in the affairs of men 
"Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune; 
"Omitted, all the voyage of their life 
"Is bound in shallows and in miseries." 

I knew a farmer in Scotland, who was considerably 
criticised for one thing and another by certain narrow- 



Distractions 12 1 

minded neighbors. But he used often to say to me, 
"Well, I may be this and I may be that, but I'm aye 
there when I'm wanted." He was one of the great army 
of the RELIABLES. 

"And as thy servant was busy here and there, he was 
gone" I do not wish to suggest that we should be narrow 
in our sympathies and exclusive in our pursuits As a rule, 
the man of one idea, or the man of one book, or the man 
of one interest (be it even his appointed life-work) is 
neither specially agreeable nor specially useful. Besides 
his Vocation in life, a man should, if possible, have his 
Avocation (that is, some pursuit or hobby over and above 
his usual toil), and also his Vacation (his times of relax- 
ation and recreation and mirth and merriment). 

Life is too fair and too rich, and has too many facets, 
for any one with a Soul to be having his nose perpetually 
at the grindstone. Let us, indeed, look up and down and 
hither and thither. Let us cull from the various treas- 
uries that we have access to. Let us get all we can of 
Instruction and of wholesome Amusement, and so forth, 
out of life. But, "First Things First." By all and 
every means let us not neglect the MAIN ISSUE. The 
occasional distractions of life have their place and func- 
tion; just as the centrifugal forces of gravitation have 
their place and function. But, after all, the centripetal 
forces are the more important ; for without the centripetal 
forces this earth of ours would not hold together and 
would not keep in its orbit for a moment. The occa- 
sional distractions of life, then, have their place and func- 
tion; but the great thing is CONCENTRATION,— 



122 The Imperishable Heart 

especially with regard to one's Appointed Life Work. 
No man has ever excelled in business, no man has ever 
excelled as an artist or as a public speaker, who has al- 
lowed himself to be perpetually "busy here and there," 
instead of giving his thought and time and toil to the main 
task. 

In one view of it the Concentration may have to be con- 
centration on details: as when a notable artist sat for 
hours throwing pebbles into a smooth lake of water, and 
watching, in order that he might be perfectly sure of the 
appearance of a surface of water when so disturbed. 

In another view of it the concentration must be con- 
centration on the work as a whole — and the progress and 
issue of it. In which case it is in the way of becoming 
CONSECRATION. 

"And whatsoever ye do, do heartily, — as to the Lord, 
and not unto men: ... for ye serve the Lord 
Christ." 

Brethren, I cannot see how any man or woman who has 
caught the CHRIST CONCEPTION OF LIFE can 
be content to 'putter' through life. For surely the Christ 
conception of life means, Get Something Done — some- 
thing substantial and worth while and abiding. 

And then, if I do not wish to suggest that we should be 
narrow and exclusive, neither do I wish to suggest that 
our text this evening is a protest against genuine BUS-I- 
NESS. "As thy servant was busy here and there, he was 
gone." 

It is not Industry, it is not Action, it is not Ambition, 
it is not Push that is reprehended in this prophet's para- 



Distractions 123 

ble. What is reprehended is desultoriness and fidgeti- 
ness of action. 

It is not, so to speak, the steady flow of the river that is 
deprecated; but the erratic running hither and thither of 
the quicksilver. The river flows within bounds, and with 
a sure aim and purpose The quicksilver is of little use 
until it is confined and kept within bounds. It requires 
to be concentrated. 

You often hear people say, when they are asked to do 
this or that, "O, I cannot: I am too busy." The truth 
being, in about nine cases out of ten, that the people who 
say so are under an unfortunate delusion. They are "too 
busy" — yes — in the sense that their attentions and energies 
are hopelessly scattered: they are not "too busy" in the 
sense of having their attentions and energies too closely 
centered on one or two things that are worth while. If 
they were less scatteredly "busy" and more succinctly 
"busy," they would have more time to give to the "things 
that are more excellent." 

Oh, my friends, how much we need the adroit and 
solemn hint of this little Old Testament saying, in these 
very days of ours and in this very land. I need it. You 
need it. The vast majority of the American people, if I 
mistake not, need it badly. 

We are allowing too many distractions in our lives. We 
have too many side-tracks to our main track. We are not 
concentrating sufficiently on the BIG THINGS. We 
are for ever "busy here and there," instead of keeping eye 
and mind on our charge. And, year after year, when the 
sizing-up times come round, we ask ourselves, with a be- 
wildered disappointment, "What, after all, have we gotten 



124 The Imperishable Heart 

DONE during the year that is past?" 

Just yesterday I came across a most wholesome article 
in 'The Continent' (one of our best religious weeklies in 
America). The article is entitled 'Finding one's own task.' 
Here are some of the opening sentences, — "This is the 
day of breadth — and thinness. Never before were so 
many persons interested in so many different subjects. The 
' 'well-rounded" man's life is often a disk rather than a 
sphere His circumference is too great for his substance. 
He is obliged to read many books, in order to keep up with 
the times; and consequently he is not the master of any. 
A score of social reforms demand his allegiance — and none 
of them gets his real service. Cosmopolitan and modern 
the alert man of today assuredly is ; but we are not quite 
so certain about his effectiveness." Then the writer con- 
cludes his article by saying that "every Christian should 
make sure that he has some one particular task that he is 
going to do regularly, rain or shine," and so on. 

And that, my friends, is pretty much what I wish to be 
at tonight: let the circumference of our life — the circum- 
ference of our interests — be a little smaller, and let the 
substance be somewhat more solid and more relia- 
ble. In Church work particularly, I should say, let us 
find our proper tasks: then let us get down to our tasks, 
and stick to business. "Patient continuance in well-do- 
ing" is one of the great needs of the age, — in the Church 
and out of it. 

Undoubtedly we are the losers by prev entitle distrac- 
tions. Yes, in many cases (not always, by any means, 
but in many cases) the distractions are preventible They 
could be prevented, many times, if we would learn to say 



Distractions % 125 

'No,' or if we would just exercise a little self-denial in this 
direction and in that, and so forth. 

The whole matter resolves itself into an APPRECIA- 
TION of VALUES. 

For example, do we sufficiently appreciate the value of 
little things? say, little portions of TIME? 

It was W. E. Channing who said, "A single hour in the 
day, steadily given to the study of some interesting subject, 
brings unexpected accumulations of knowledge." A few 
years ago, I may tell you, I made up my mind to read 
through the thirty-seven Plays of Shakespeare in as many 
weeks, — without, if possible, 'taking' the time from any- 
thing else. I did it. One Play a week: in other words, 
One Act each day — Monday to Friday, and just about an 
average of twenty-five minutes to each Act. Of course I 
did not study the Plays minutely; but I read deliberately 
every word, and read more than once some of the more im- 
pressive passages: and I seemed to have time for every- 
thing else as usual. It was a most enriching experience: 
and I am doing it again this winter. It is simply marvel- 
lous how much can be done in a little time by concen- 
trating. 

By reading Three Chapters a day, or One Book a week, 
you will read the whole Bible through in a trifle over a 
year, — at an average expenditure of time of not more than 
fifteen minutes a day. But we are so "busy here and 
there" that we 'haven't time' for such achievements. O, 
my friends, if there is one thing I try to say as seldom as 
possible, it is "I haven't time." Because so often when that 
is said by people, it is just nonsense — based upon a pitiable 



126 The Imperishable Heart 

delusion. Why! in most instances we may have time 
if we will make time. We should always have time 
for the large and lustrous things of life, — the "things that 
are more excellent." . . . And, if some persons really 
have no time for soul-culture, because their work-hours — 
in store or elsewhere — are ridiculously long, then there is 
something wrong somewhere. It is simply not right to 
ask anyone to work at the same narrow job from eight 
o'clock in the morning till nine or ten at night; no mat 
ter what wages he is offered. It is not a question ol 
wages : it is a question of human right and human need, a 
question of mental and spiritual opportunity. 

Then, do we sufficiently appreciate the value of PUNC- 
TUALITY and ORDERLINESS? 

Many a man who might have done big things in this 
world has remained a mediocrity, because of his unpunc- 
tuality. Again and again he has been "too late" to "take 
occasion by the hand." 

Besides, unpunctuality is a sort of social sin. There 
is nothing that so throws a whole company of people 
out of the full enjoyment of some hour of instruction or 
some hour of pleasure. Shakespeare makes one of his 
characters say, "I'll rather be unmannerly than trouble- 
some." But the truth is that, in most instances, the 
individual who is unpunctual without apology is both 
"unmannerly" and "troublesome." 

So that both from a selfish point of view and from an 
unselfish point of view, the maxim holds, "Be scru- 
pulously punctual." And in these days of a multitude of 
interests and a multitude of engagements, Orderliness is 
well worth cultivating. You remember how an Old 



Distractions 127 

Testament prophet says in one place, "In quietness 
and in confidence shall be your strength." Yes, for mental 
clarity and uplift, and for the soul's good, we need much 
of "quietness and confidence." Well, a man who led a 
very active and closely packed life once said that he 
managed to "preserve a certain quietness of mind" among 
all his multifarious engagements, because (he said) "I 
take up one thing in order after another," and "I try to 
fix my whole thoughts upon the one thing that lies be- 
fore me, as if I had nothing else to attend to." Ah, if we 
could manage that sort of thing, what a blessing it would 
be to us: not only in the daily round, but also in Prayer, 
and in Hours of Christian Worship, and in our times of 
holding communion with the Master Spirits of Humanity 
in the great Books of the ages! Yes, indeed, "a certain 
quietness of mind" is necessary to the most successful and 
abiding work, and to the most devout and life-fashioning 
worship. 

And is that not one of the chief values of our Sab- 
bath Rest and Sabbath Opportunity? — one of the chief 
values of our 'assembling ourselves together' in Christian 
fellowship and prayer? — that we get time to cultivate 
"quietness of mind," to bring order again out of confusion 
and to bring peace where there was so much of turmoil. 
Thank God for the Gift of the REST DAY, when our 
SOULS get a chance. 

"Thou art a port protected 
"From storms that round us rise." 

Now, brethren, I feel that I am only managing to 
touch the fringe of this subject tonight. It is a subject 



128 The Imperishable Heart 

that is both wide and deep; and I might say ever so 
much more. But I am going to close with but one other 
thought. 

"And as thy servant was busy here and there, he was 
gone." There is one great and blessed Experience of 
life — One Sublime Friendship — which many men and 
women are missing because they are so "busy here and 
there," — because they never stop to think and feel and 
to receive God's Best. Time and again JESUS comes 
and stands by us, and waits : but we are so occupied with 
the "things" of this world, that He has to pass on. We 
are "busy here and there," and 'He is gone.' There HE 
stands, — the Good and Gentle and Gracious and Grand 
CHRIST. He might shout and hammer at us, until we 
simply had to stop our petty and greedy bus-i-ness. But 
that is not His way. He is too courteous for that — too 
gentlemanly. Besides, He does not wish to be where He 
is not wanted. None the less, He is eager — indescribably 
eager — to make His abode with us. 

There HE stands, — the Good and Gentle and Gracious 
and Grand CHRIST! "Is it nothing to you, all ye that 
pass by? O, surely we are not too "busy" to consider 
this unique offer of Friendship. 



XIII 

HINDERERS 

''Deliver me from the oppression of man: so will I keep 
Thy precepts." — Psalm CXIX, 134. 

HC\ HOW I love Thy law!" Such is the chief and 
continuing theme of this long Psalm: the love of 
God's will and of God's ways. 

Clearly, therefore, the Psalmist cannot mean in this 
verse, that he will not 'keep God's precepts' unless he is 
'delivered from the oppression of man.' He will 'keep 
God's precepts' anyway. But he wants to keep them 
well. He wants to "run the way of God's command- 
ments," as he says elsewhere. Consequently he is anxious 
that all handicaps and hindrances be removed, — especially 
all such discouragements and thwartings and stumbling- 
blocks as are being put in his way from time to time by 
one and another of his fellow-mortals. "Deliver me from 
the oppression of man : so will I keep Thy precepts." 

O yes, we may be willing, and we may have sincerity 
and pluck enough, to serve God in "bonds and afflictions" 
(to use St. Paul's phrase). We may be determined to be 
true to our best selves in face of human interference and 
human opposition — of whatever sort. But, as these things 
are discouragements and drags, we should like, if it be 
possible, to have them removed ; so that our pace may be 
a little swifter and our breathing a little freer. "De- 
liver me from the oppression of man: so will I keep Thy 
129 



130 The Imperishable Heart 

precepts." 

There are various kinds of hindrances to our 'keeping 
God's precepts' well, — to our keeping them regularly and 
surely and with alacrity. 

Why is it that so many people are not nearly so good 
as they might be; not nearly so good as they desire and 
aspire to be — many of them? Why is it that so many 
really religious people are weak on the side of practical 
righteousness and usefulness of life? Why is it that so 
many professing disciples of Christ (true enough at heart, 
many of them) are showing themselves petulant and irrit- 
able, and too easily giving way to impulse, and apparently 
indifferent and hang-back in the work of the Kingdom ? 

Why is it? Chiefly because of the hindrances, because 
of the stumbling-blocks (or "offences," as the New Testa- 
ment calls them) which lie in their way, and which dis- 
tract their attention and give them many a nasty jar, and 
are like to take the heart out of them. 

Now the hindrances are of various kinds. 

Some of them are within ourselves. To many people 
ill-health is a hindrance, and accounts for not a little 
moral vacillation and moral failure. Then some people 
seem to have been born with certain twists of temperament, 
which make it almost impossible for them, in their own 
strength, to rise to the serene heights of Christian cheer- 
fulness and Christian charity. Others, again, are the 
victims of inordinate and unlovely appetites, which se- 
duce them from following after '" whatsoever things are 
pure" and "whatsoever things are lovely." And there 
are the demons of pride and self-complacency and stub- 
bornness and niggardliness,' and the whole bad brood, 



Hinder ers 131 

— spectres and snares within ourselves. 

But there are also external hindrances, — thwartings 
and stumbling-blocks outwith ourselves. Climatic con- 
ditions, for example, may explain, to some extent, the mor- 
al and spiritual tone of a community. The sanitary con- 
dition — and the hygienic conditions generally — of a dis- 
trict may, to a large extent, account for God's 'precepts' 
not being 'kept' there. Even the proper lighting of a city's 
streets by night has been shown, in some instances, to 
have improved the morals of the place. And then, there 
are the various "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" 
(as Shakespeare phrases it): business reverses; financial 
embarrassments; the sicknesses and hurts and depressions 
of our dear ones, — wounding our spirits as well as theirs ; 
and the grim visits of Death, — cutting off from us, some- 
times, the most helpful and uplifting of our Companions 
of the Way. These all — spectres and snares outside of 
ourselves: determined and brought to pass, for the most 
part, by our environment and by the play of Circum- 
stance. 

But, brethren, of the outward hindrances to moral and 
spiritual progress the worst, by a long way, are those 
which come from what the Psalmist here comprehensively 
calls "the oppression of man," — the various thoughtless- 
nesses and follies and selfishnesses and wickednesses of 
our fellow-mortals: deliberate or otherwise: expressly di- 
rected against us, or — at least — whose mischievous impact 
we are bound to feel. "Deliver me from the oppression 
of man: so will I keep Thy precepts." 

Unfortunately (yet, perhaps, fortunately— for our en- 
couragement) Scripture has to take frank account of this 



132 The Imperishable Heart 

type of hindrance to achievement in righteousness. In this 
Book of Psalms, for instance, (this incomparable Book of 
the Soul) you have such sayings as these: — "O God, the 
proud are risen up against me;" "Let them be ashamed 
and confounded together that seek after my soul to des- 
troy it;" "He remembered not to show mercy, but per- 
secuted the poor and needy man, that he might even slay 
the broken in heart;" "Our soul is exceedingly filled with 
the scorning of those that are at ease, and with the con- 
tempt of the proud;" "Hide me from the secret counsel 
of the wicked; from the insurrection of the workers of 
iniquity: who whet their tongue like a sword, and bend 
their bows to shoot their arrows — even bitter words." 
Then you remember how, in one place, Paul asks to be 
delivered from "unreasonable and wicked men." And 
could anything be more solemn, could anything be more 
scathing, — (and you may be sure it was only said because 
it needed to be said: and it needs to be said still) — could 
anything be more awfully solemn than our Saviour's 
words, "It is impossible but that offences (hindrances) 
will come: but woe unto him through whom they come! 
It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about 
his neck, and he cast into the sea" ! 

Well, my friends, this moral and spiritual discourage- 
ment which arises from "the oppression of man" is the very 
worst kind of hindrance which ever gets in our way. And 
that, because it is so wholly out of harmony with the 
human function. 

"Life," it has been said, "is either a neighborhood or a 
jungle." That is to say, either a neighborhood, — where 
all is peace and kindness and mutual helpfulness; or a 



Hinder ers 1 33 

jungle, — where all is ferocity and greed and rapine and 
bloodshed. Well, clearly, life is not meant to be a jungle: 
it is meant to be a neighborhood. "For none of us liveth 
to himself," says the New Testament; and again, "Bear 
ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." 
Yes, we are "born to do benefits:" to help one another, 
not to hinder and harass one another: not to perplex and 
poison and plunder one another, but to "dwell together 
in unity:" 'considering one another, and provoking unto 
love and to good works,' — as neighbors, as brothers and 
sisters in the One Family of God. And so "the oppres- 
sion of man," preventing this neighborhood-way-of-life and 
suggesting and encouraging the jungle-way-of-life, is 
simply awful; because it is so horribly out of tune with 
God's purposes for Humanity. . . . 

Suppose we ask, then, — in order to be on our guard, 
and in order to avoid them or at least to know how to 
deal with them, — (suppose we ask), what forms does "the 
oppression of man" assume? 

Sometimes it assumes a Corporate form, — organized, 
systematic, armed cap-a-pie. 

The Liquor Traffic, for example, and the White-Slave 
Traffic, as exploited in this and some other countries, are 
corporate forms of "the oppression of man" which are 
preventing thousands of souls from 'keeping God's pre- 
cepts.' They are working fearful havoc. And they are 
doubly and trebly damaging, just because they are so 'op- 
pressive,' so domineering, so tyrannical, so difficult for 
people to get-out-of-the-clutches-of , once they are in. 

Then there is the inadequate wage system. We do not 



134 The Imperishable Heart 

require to read Winston Churchill's "The Inside of the 
Cup," in order to see how "the oppression of man" hin- 
ders in this direction. Truth, here, is stranger than fic- 
tion: or at least more staggering. I have seen it stated 
that there are women in the 'Little Italy's of New York 
City, for example, who get fifteen cents apiece for arti- 
ficial bouquets which sell in the shops for about a dollar- 
and-a-half apiece; their total earnings being from sixty to, 
seventy cents a day. Now sometimes low wages and high 
morals do go together; but it is only a double portion 
of the grace of God which can bring that to pass. Hu- 
manly speaking, if you are starving men's bodies, you are 
starving their souls also; and the human being's profic- 
iency-in-morals depends to a considerable extent upon the 
human being's pay. 

Then there are our arbitrary class distinctions and the 
unnatural and unbrotherly gap which too often exists 
between employers and employed. True, these things are 
not so unpleasantly obvious in this Country as in, say, the 
older countries of Europe; but, let me tell you, they are 
growing, I fear, in this Country, instead of diminishing 
and disappearing. In a recent book — called "Immigrant 
Forces" — it is told that "a young Bohemian woman, hav- 
ing saved a tidy sum from her earnings as a maid in 
America, returned to her home in Prague with the idea 
of settling down there to work. It was scarcely two 
months before she was on her way back to America. The 
reason she gave was not solely the better wages she would 
receive. She said, 'Here (i. e., in her European home) 
I work like a dog and am treated like a dog. In America 
I work hard, but my mistress is kind and considerate, and 



Hinder ers 1 35 

evidently thinks I am a human being, too 

I am going back to America, and I do not think I shall 
ever return.' " Long may it be said, indeed, of this 
Country that its employers treat their employes like 'hu- 
man beings,' and not like 'dogs' or machines! . . . 
Yet, what is to be said, when young people are asked to 
work in stores from eight o'clock in the morning to nine 
or ten at night — six full days a week. Is that fair ? Is it 
not just "the oppression of man" preventing our young 
people having sufficient leisure to realize themselves along 
certain lines of the Divine "precepts?" Some improve- 
ment, there, is needed in our own community. . . . 

But, besides in the corporate form, "the oppression of 
man" is to be experienced in Individual forms and in- 
stances — every day and all over the world. 

"Deliver me from the oppression of man: so will I keep 
Thy precepts." O yes, how often we are inclined to say, 
If people would just leave us alone, or at least treat us in 
a half-Christlike fashion, we could make some progress in 
character-culture! But, alas, (as the Prayer Book 
phrases it) we are "sore let and hindered" one way and 
another almost every day: and, for the most part, we are 
— every one of us — both hindered and hinderers. 

Sometimes it is through Lack of Courtesy that we 'op- 
press' and hinder our fellows from 'keeping God's pre- 
cepts' proficiently and cheerfully. And, remember, Cour- 
tesy is not just a matter of taste and temperament: it is 
an express Gospel Rule. "Be courteous," says St. Peter in 
his ist Epistle. In my parish in Scotland, when, Sunday 
mornings, I walked from the Manse to the Church, I 



136 The Imperishable Heart 

usually met the minister of one of the other Churches in 
town coming in the opposite direction. One morning, it 
was the new minister of that Church passing along to 
take his first service there. I had never met him before, 
but I guessed who he was, and gave him "Good Morn- 
ing" in the passing. Some weeks afterwards, at the close 
of his Installation Service, he said to me, "Man, you have 
no idea how much uplift I got from your 'Good Morn- 
ing' that first day we met out here: I was feeling blue 
and discouraged and apprehensive, but your two words 
lifted the cloud." Now, I tell you that, my friends, not 
to praise myself (God forbid! — besides, I have never flat- 
tered myself on being an expert in courtesy). I tell it 
you to show you how much good cheer we can be the 
means of communicating, by just being cheerfully frank 
and kindly to our fellow-men — whether they happen to be 
life-long chums or not. 

Sometimes, again, it is through Lack of Neighborly 
Imagination that we 'oppress' and hinder. And by Neigh- 
borly Imagination I mean the faculty of putting our- 
selves in other people's places — so as to do as we would 
be done by. O, how often we say things we would never 
dream of saying, how often we judge people as we would 
never presume to judge them, with what deplorable want 
of sense we sometimes act towards people, — simply because 
we do not try to put our souls in their soul's places and to 
imagine ourselves in their precise circumstances! And so 
misunderstandings arise, and feelings are hurt, and the 
little "rifts" are made (and sometimes big rifts) in the 
lutes' of life's orchestra. . . . To help us avoid all 
such, then, let us ponder these two Apostolic sayings: 



Hinder ers 1 37 

"Look not every man on his own things only, but every 
man also on the things of others," and, "Considering thy- 
self, lest thou also be tempted." 

Sometimes, again, it is by Tale-bearing that we 'op- 
press' and hinder. If you will read the old Book of Le- 
viticus, which is much more scientific and much more mod- 
ern than some people suppose, you will find this Law 
amongst others, "Thou shalt not go up and down as a 
tale-bearer among thy people." And the New Testament 
has some slashing things to say of those who are "whisp- 
erers." O yes, too often we allow ourselves to 'take up a 
reproach against a neighbor' (as the XVth Psalm puts it), 
— to 'take it up,' to accept it and handle it — so to speak, 
and to 'whisper' it about amongst our intimates and as- 
sociates, — until we have hurt and damaged the said 'neigh- 
bor.' Then, the chances are — such is human nature — said 
neighbor will proceed to live down to the new reputation 
we have created for him by our "tale-bearing." How 
diametrically and wickedly opposed to the Spirit of Christ : 
the spirit of forgiveness and forbearance and mutual help- 
fulness and encouragement-in-the-way-of-righteousness ! 

Once more, it is sometimes by the process of what is 
often called "pin-pricking" that we 'oppress' and hinder 
men and women from 'keeping God's precepts' well and 
gladly. 

You know what this "pin-pricking" is: not slashing at 
people on a frank and generous scale, — but just nagging at 
them whenever one gets a chance, and humiliating them 
whenever one gets the opportunity, and making subtle 
insinuations in their presence — while pretending to speak 
generalities and perhaps dropping them an anonymous let- 



138 The Imperishable Heart 

ter now and again. My friends, many a good soul has 
been ruined by that sort of thing, — has let go its hold of 
faith in God and faith in Humanity, and has become 
sceptical and sour and unutterably hard and selfish. Well 
did the Master say, "Woe to that man by whom the of- 
fence cometh!" 

"Deliver me from the oppression of man: so will I 
keep Thy precepts." 

Ay, some individuals are suffering grievously from "the 
oppression of man," — not to speak of the oppression of 
woman ; and the wonder is, sometimes, that such 'op- 
pressed' humans can even live up to the level of Christian 
mediocrity, — not to mention, for a moment, Christian 
Saintship. 

Which of us is wholly guiltless? Which of us does 
not need to get down on our knees and pray for more and 
more of the Spirit of CHRIST; so that our hearts may 
be chastened into a new appreciation and love of our fel- 
low-mortals; and so that we may know how to adopt 
really CHRISTIAN METHODS— in the home, in the 
store, in the factory, in the Church, and in all the comings 
and goings of our Communal Life? 

"Even so, come, Lord Jesus" into our hard and 
thoughtless and unloving hearts, and make them Human 
Hearts and Hearts of Love! 



XIV 

THE HAPPINESS OF HOLDING ON 

''Behold, we count them happy which endure." — James 
V, ii. 

HP HERE are, one may say, three E's which go to make 
up a complete life, and, in particular, a complete and 
effective Christian manhood or womanhood. They are 
Enthusiasm, Energy, and Endurance. Enthusiasm, alone, 
is not nearly enough: besides, we cannot always be burn- 
ing and boiling with Enthusiasm. Neither is Enthusiasm- 
plus-Energy enough : our Energy does not always ener- 
gize equally, — from this cause and from that we relax 
and tire. But add to Enthusiasm and Energy ENDUR- 
ANCE; and you have a pretty satisfactory equipment. 
Yes, we need to be able to bear, when we cannot ac- 
tually do. We need to be able to hold-on, when we cannot 
actually be pushing-on and making progress. And, "Be- 
hold, we count them happy which endure" — We call them 
blessed who endure. 

You remember a remarkable passage at the close of 
the Fortieth of Isaiah, "They that wait upon the Lord 

. . . shall mount up with wings as eagles; they 
shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not 
faint." First, the wings of aspiration and Enthusiasm; 
then, the brisk Energy of the fleet foot; then, the solid 
Endurance of the walking pace, when one is like 
to faint, but does not. From soaring on wings to running, 
139 



and then to walking! Does it seem a disappointing anti- 
climax? In reality it is not so. It is a going from 
strength to strength. "Behold, we count them happy 
which endure." The happiness of holding-on : the blessed- 
ness of bearing-up. 

When you think of it, my friends, what we honor and 
admire most about GOD Himself is the Enduringness — 
the Abidingness — of His qualities. His power abides. 
His wisdom abides. His love abides. The constancy of 
our Father in heaven — His sublime staying-power — im- 
presses us, and touches us. We know how it is put in 
Scripture here — in various passages. "The glory of the 
Lord shall endure for ever:" "His righteousness endureth 
for ever:" "His truth endureth to all generations:" "His 
mercy endureth for ever:" and, in this same epistle, God 
is called the "Father of lights, with whom is no variable- 
ness, neither shadow of turning." 

Then, do we not rejoice and glory in the fact that 
"JESUS CHRIST is the same yesterday, and today, and 
forever?" — His purity never to be tarnished; His love 
never to be wearied; the comfort of His Cross never to 
be robbed of one iota of its content; the 'power of His 
endless life' never to be diminished by one jot or tittle: — 
holding on for ever in the supremacy of His place, in the 
sublimity of His character, in the sweetness of His 
grace. 

Yes, as James Russell Lowell says, in one of his poems, 
"Endurance is the crowning quality." 

What is it that constitutes the difference between the 
greater works of art and the lesser, between the greater 



things in literature and the lesser? Is it not just this 
quality of ENDURANCE? "With tears and laughters 
for all time," says Mrs. Browning of Shakespeare. And 
that is the distinction of the great Books and the great 
Pictures and the great Musical Compositions. They are 
"for all time." They live: never out of date: receiv- 
ing, in fact, new content and new power-of-inspiration 
with each new generation of seeing eyes and hearing ears 
and thinking minds and understanding hearts. 

We are not surprised, then, that the Bible is strong on 
the need and the distinction of Endurance. 

Enthusiasm? By all means: life is lustreless without 
enthusiasm. Energy? Most certainly: life is flabby with- 
out energy. But through all, my friends, Endurance, — 
Staying- Power, — Stick-to-itiveness. 

Moses, we are told, was neither seduced by pleasure nor 
overcome of fear, because "he endured as seeing Him Who 
is invisible." Yes it is seeing with the eye of Faith what 
the eye of flesh cannot see that makes men and women 
hold-on. "Can thine heart endure?" said the prophet 
Ezekiel to the people of Jerusalem, when he was telling 
them that there were dark days ahead for them. And 
you remember how our Saviour frankly and seriously 
urged His disciples to 'count the cost' of Christian disciple- 
ship, and how He said, "He that endureth to the end shall 
be saved." 

O, my friends, there is so much of grace and geniality 
about the Gospel, there is so much of gladness in true 
Christian discipleship, that we are apt sometimes to forget 
the grim conditions of unqualified and ultimate success. 

And yet in a wonderfully deft way our text this morn- 



142 The Imperishable Heart 

ing brings the gladness and the grimness together: "We 
count them HAPPY which ENDURE."— The Happi- 
ness of Holding-on. 

Holding-on — Enduring — "Patient Continuance in well- 
doing" (to use a phrase of St. Paul) ! Oh, how much we 
need it, all of us! 

Not, perhaps, a particularly brilliant note of character. 
No, perhaps not a brilliant thing; but a thing that counts, 
— ay, the thing that counts. 

"There are only two creatures," says an old Eastern 
proverb, (there are only two creatures) that can surmount 
the pyramids unaided, — the eagle and the snail." And so, 
if, for Christian expansion and Christian progress, we 
need the soaring faculty that is typified in the king of 
birds; we need also the ability to GO SLOW, and feel 
our way along, and stick to the track in those slippery 
places where a freer and swifter foot might slip and bring 
the traveller to grief. 

I knew a young athlete at the University of Edinburgh 
who could beat all comers at quick starting in a short 
race. He was off his mark like the very shot of the pistol 
itself, — and with it to a tenth of a second; and at, say, 
twenty yards from the starting-line he was invariably lead- 
ing. Now, it is often said of a short race (a sprint) that 
'everything is in the start.' Is it ? I never knew that fel- 
low to win a race — even a hundred yards race. Why? 
Because he never took pains to cultivate staying-power. 
Always first at the start, he was never first at the finish. 

. . . And if the importance of staying-power in- 
creases with the length of the race, then let us remember 



The Happiness of Holding On 143 

that our lives are not just sprints, but long and exacting 
races requiring "all we know." 

The Start may be something (yes, a right start, surely) : 
but the Staying Power is nearly everything. "Which 
of you," said the great Teacher, you remember, 
"which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not 
down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have suf- 
ficient to finish it? Lest haply all that behold begin to 
mock . . ., saying, This man began to build, and 
was not able to finish." What an awful pronouncement 
to have to receive on one's life, — "This man began to 
build, but was not able to finish"! 

I knew a preacher, too, who was always announcing 
series of lectures to be given in his Church — on this and 
that subject. They looked remarkably well on paper — 
these programs ; but I do not remember of any one series be- 
ing carried out to completion. They (all, I think) died 
premature deaths. Why? Because (and I had this on 
the admission of the man himself) he had not mapped out 
his course with sufficient precision: he had not gotten his 
material sufficiently well together at the start; and, once 
started, he seemed to think that comparatively little work 
was needed. 

Why, brethren, if a man once starts on a worthy and 
substantial line of work (whatever it may be), let him 
know that he is in for a call-to-work which will 
abide from day to day and week to week. I sometimes 
fear that some of our young people allow themselves to 
suppose that, after four or five years at College, they will 
be equipped arid the way thereafter will be comparatively 
easy. Why, my young friends, after a fellow leaves col- 



144 The Imperishable Heart 

lege (if it be that), his WORK is only beginning. And, 
if a fellow does not learn, at College, to endure — to 
hang-in to whatever work he undertakes, then, I suspect, 
his college education has gone for little. 

Then there is the "Gusher:" the individual who effer- 
vesces with enthusiasm over this or that project, and is 
prolific in promises and suggestions; but, somehow or 
other, not on deck when wanted, not there to take part in 
the follow-up work, — usually elsewhere and otherwise oc- 
cupied when the need of quiet, patient, continuation-work 
is pressing. Probably always "busy here and there" (as 
the Old Testament phrases it), but seldom 'on the job.' 
Ay, not infrequently too much gush, too little grit. 
"He was ever precise in promise-keeping," is approvingly 
said of one of Shakespeare's men. 

Yes, it is the explanation of many a disappointing life, 
— this lack of Endurance, this lack of stick-to-itiveness. 
Many a man has relaxed just at the point where 
success was about to begin. I trust I do not underrate 
the difficulties one may meet; the cloying monotony of 
some tasks; the baffling discouragements that fall in one's 
way; the trials of faith and patience; the subtle tempta- 
tions to ease, and the specious excuses that bow themselves 
into our pathway. But, brethren, if these things were 
not, there would be no call for staying-power, no happi- 
ness of endurance. 

"Much drawback! What were earth without? 

"Is this our ultimate stage, or starting-place 

"To try man's foot . . . ? 

" . . . Was the trial sore? 

"Temptation sharp ? Thank God . , . ! 



The Happiness of Holding On 145 

"Why comes temptation but for man to meet 
"And master and make crouch beneath his foot, 
"And so be pedestaled in triumph?" 
Ah, yes, the call to Endurance is not just a counsel of des- 
pair. It is an appeal to all that is most heroic and most 
courageous and most Christlike in human nature. "Be- 
hold, we count them HAPPY who ENDURE." 

All the same, we do well to make up our minds that 
there are times when there is not much exhilaration — not 
much suggestion of 'happiness' — about the Endurance. 

There are times, with most of us, — are there not? — 
when things go all awry, when all is confusion, when there 
is no glint of light — no beam of hope — athwart the path, 
when we are simply humbled flat; when, perhaps, our 
faith in God is a mere flicker, and our love of Christ a 
scarce distinguishable spark; when we are out of heart 
with ourselves, and have pretty near lost faith in every- 
body else. What are we to do at such times as these? 
Simply HOLD ON: set our faces like a flint, and 
'march breast forward.' No dazzling feat is possible in 
such dull, flat, ^inspirational seasons. No dazzling feat 
is possible: no thrilling throw of the soul: no exhilarat- 
ing 'poetry of motion'! Just the prosaic and lustreless 
duty of going on step by step — with "quiet brave 
endurance." It was a man of many sceptical and 
despondent thoughts who said, nevertheless, "Be what 
you ought to be ; the rest is God's affair. . . . And," 
he added, "supposing that there were no good and holy 
God, . . . Duty would still be the key of the 
enigma, the pole-star of a wandering humanity." And 



146 The Imperishable Heart 

there is a wonderful passage in the Book of Job (that 
Book so sombre in many ways, but, at heart and in its 
issue, a Book of Faith) — there is this wonderful passage, 
"He hath made me a byword of the people; . . . 
mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow, and all my mem- 
bers are as a shadow. . . . Yet shall the righteous 
HOLD ON HIS WAY, and he that hath clean hands 
shall wax stronger and stronger." 

Yes, my friends, it is in the day of hard trial that En- 
durance is the only way; and the only guarantee of 
'happiness;' and, moreover, the only thing that we 'count 
happy' and agree to admire and honor. "In a fair gale," 
it has been said, "every fool may sail, but wise behavior in 
a storm commends the wisdom of a pilot." Or, as the 
Book of Proverbs has it, "If thou faint in the day of ad- 
versity, thy strength is small." 

"We count them happy which endure!" Is it not 
so? The individual who clean breaks down "in the 
day of adversity," and lies shattered and hopeless and be- 
reft of all energy and all desire? Or, the individual who, 
"in the day of adversity," frets and fumes and cavils and 
snarls at Providence? Or, the individual who proceeds to 
engulf his cares instead of enduring them — who proceeds 
to 'drown his cares' in some sort of self-indulgence? These 
(however we may feel for them, and appreciate the hard- 
ness of their lot) — these are not the men and women 
whom we 'count happy' and take for our models. 
No, "we count them happy who endure:" who, in their 
darkest days and in their bitterest experiences, still 
keep on trusting, and keep on trying, and keep on smil- 
ing (if it may be), — determined, at all events, to 



The Happiness of Holding On 147 

touch no other heart with pain, and to infect no neighboi 
soul with doubt, and to bring into the lives about them no 
other spirit than the very Spirit of CHRIST Himself. 
Thank God for that sort. I have known not a few 
of them ; and they have been the sheet-anchor of my own 
Faith and Patience when these things were like to give 
way. For 

"Through such souls . . . 

"God stooping shows sufficient of His light 

"For us in the dark to rise by." 

And so, brethren, I have come to my last word this 
morning. "Through such souls" — have I just quoted? 
Yes, but "ONE there is above all others," Who shows 
us how to "endure." "Consider HIM Who endured 
such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be 
wearied and faint in your minds." 

Long weeks before the end the Saviour "steadfastly set 
His face to go to Jerusalem," — where, He well knew, 
suspicion and disloyalty and insult and death awaited 
Him. He "steadfastly set His face to go": and went. 
Never a hint of flinching: never a suggestion of turning 
out of the way. 

Then, in what I always think must have been His very 
darkest and most painful hour, it was, "Father, if it be 
possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I 
will, but as Thou wilt." 

Then, in fine, He "endured the cross;" because, if it 
was the death-place of Sin, it was also the birth-place of 
a new Love for the world and a new Faith in the Good- 
ness and Mercy of God and a new spring for the Ser- 



148 The Imperishable Heart 

vice of Humanity. 

And, how was it all done? With a frown on the 
face, and a protest in the heart ? Nay, verily : but with an 
unfaltering trust in God, and with a quiet mind, and with 
a heart of Love. And so the JOY of the Saviour — in His 
completed work of Redemption — must be a deeper and 
richer and holier joy than we have ever attained to: al- 
though, mark you, we may have some taste of it, if we 
take up our crosses quietly and bravely and hopefully 
and lovingly — for HIS sake and for the Brethren's sake 
and for the joy that is set before us! For, "behold, we 
count them happy who endure." 



XV 

THE DIVINE ARITHMETIC 

"So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our 
hearts unto wisdom" — Psalm XC, 12. 

A/TANY fine and appreciative things have been said 
about this Psalm which I have read to you this even- 
ing, and in the heart of which I have found my text. It 
has been called "perhaps the most sublime of human com- 
positions." "The Psalm," says another, "has something 
uncommonly striking, solemn, sinking into the depths of 
the Godhead." And so on — tributes exceeding many. 

And no wonder ! For the XCth Psalm is wonderful, — 
a masterpiece, — a literary "pearl of great price," — a unique 
poem of the Soul. 

Nothing more apt, nor more pathetic, than is said here 
has ever been said about the brevity of human life — the 
comparative nothingness of it all. At the same time 
nothing more apt, nor more majestic, than what is said 
here has ever been said about the things that abide, — 
about the Unchanging God and the consequent splendor 
of human life when touched with "the beauty of the Lord 
our God." 

It is one of those portions of Scripture that we should 
all be the better of knowing by heart. The XCth Psalm 
has had its place, all these years, in the Burial Service of 
"The Book of Common Prayer;" and it is the foundation 
of Isaac Watts's well-known hymn "Our God, our Help 
149 



:_ s o 



I'-.- I~.;-:~iihcbU H-.:~: 



"Am 



Old Testa- 
1 wondering 
nazing — one 
haps he was 

zomrzsi: :::: 



amazing:' and. 
sub line." 

We are r.:: :: s- 
szleumiry ar.-i wiri 
Burial Service. mis 
::-r. rrarr. i: is. ir. v 
reus :: me. me p: 
:zr us ir. rice wzris 
: _r zlays. ma: we r 

We mar fairly 
"so;" — "5o teadh 
apply zu: hearts ur. 
Tca: we may a 
ir. a: we nay in ere. 
\~z: zzzaz we may i: 
ma: we nay beczm 
;::y/ apply zur ; : :'.:-; 
:u: heam-wisdzn : - 
and wicim uze N e~ 
rrzrr. a cove. 
arc easy :: ze ecu 






ook at the 

.eezi. :: if 
5 simplicity 

us zrueuse 
ss for the 
l. On the 
An z so, it 
is focussed 
:: number 



sis zn me lime wcrd 
our days, that we may 



ar:s un:z wisdom." Not, 
k of common knowledge. 

mar: sen:en:izusness. Net. 
ily wise. Bu:.— 'ma: we 
zm." ma: we may zrzzrease 
best kind of wisdom of all, 
culls "me wiscznz ma: is 
•e. men peazeacle, cerule 
of mercy and good fruits, 



The Divine Arithmetic 151 

without partiality, and without hypocrisy." 

How, then, is that end to be attained, — namely a safe 
and substantial garnering of H eart- Wisdom ? — "So 
teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts 
unto wisdom." What are to be some of the methods of 
this "divine arithmetic"? 

Well, first of all I will say — but let me not be mis- 
understood — that we are not to "number our days" at all. 
I mean, we are not to be either painfully precise or mor- 
bidly melancholy about 'numbering our days.' It has been 
said that "nature hates calculators," and that "all good 
conversation, manners, and action, come from a spon- 
taneity which . . . makes the moment great." In 
other words, brethren, if we are to live naturally, spon- 
taneously, gladly, inspirationally, — we must largely get 
rid of the 'calculating' habit, and move along as if each 
new day were both our first and our last day, and our 
best day. We must pluck out the heart of each new day's 
blessing, without stopping every hour or so to say within 
ourselves, 'We have lived so long, and have only so much 
longer to live.' That,, it seems to me, is really the thought 
lying back of such a saying of Jesus as "Take no thought 
for the morrow." He surely doesn't mean that we are 
to be thoughtless and improvident and unprepared. But 
He surely does mean that we are not to becloud our days 
with dull forebodings, that we are not to take the spring 
and sparkle out of our lives by a morbid balancing of 
probabilities. I wish I could express what I mean-to-be- 
at a little more clearly. For what I feel is that some 



152 The Imperishable Heart 

people have not yet learned to take hold of life with both 
hands and to live natural!}* — brightly and bravely and as 
if they had a right to live. They are calculating too 
much. They are going in too much for comparing one 
day with another. They are moralising too much, and al- 
lowing the shadows of the past and the spectres of the fu- 
ture to take the heart out of them for the opportunities 
and the blessings which are their present right. When 
shall we learn the goodness and the glory of the Apos- 
tolic saying, "Now is the accepted time"? 

But, apparently, there is a ''wise' numbering of our 
days. 

And so I will say, next, Let us "number our days" 
spiritually, not mathematically. 

For some things, to be sure, it is important to know a 
person's exact age. Nay more, in some respects one's age- 
:::-years has a good deal to do with one's mental and 
spiritual attainments: according to the remark, "Tell me 
how old you are, and I will tell you what you are 
thinking." 

But, after all, brethren, as one of the greatest prophets 
of the Soul has put it, "It is not length of life, but depth 
of life" that counts: "It is not duration, but a taking of 
the soul out of time, as all high action of the mind does: 
when we are living in the sentiments we ask no questions 
about time." 

What avails it that a fellow is young in years and in 
appearance, if he is old in duplicity and vice? Or, what 
matters it that one is mature in years and in the wisdom 
of the world, if he is green and immature in that ''meek- 



The Divine Arithmetic 153 

ness and gentleness of Christ" which the years should 
bring ? Not seldom those who — to our uncommon grief — 
have died in their prime have gotten far more out of 
life, and have put far more into life, than scores of those 
who have made out the allotted span. And one man does 
more that is really-worth-while in a single day than his 
neighbor does in years. So true is it that "life is measured 
by thought and action, not by time;" and that 
"We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; 
In feelings, not in figures on a dial. 
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives 
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best." 
Doesn't our Psalm here say, "Let the beauty of the Lord 
our God be upon us?" — Neither the beauty of unblem- 
ished youth, nor the beauty of well-preserved age; but 
"the beauty of the Lord our God," — "the beauty of holi- 
ness," — the beauty that "time cannot age" and "death 
cannot slay." And do we not read in one of the New 
Testament Epistles that "with the Lord" (that is, from 
the spiritual point of view, from the point of view of 
what is really worth caring about) — "with the Lord" one 
day may be as a thousand years, and a thousand years 
as one day? O, so many people have yet to be emanci- 
pated from the merely chronological estimate of life! "So 
teach us to number our days, that we may apply our 
hearts unto wisdom." 

And I will say, next, Let us "number our days" eco- 
nomically, not prodigally. 

Do you say, Now you are at the very opposite pole from 
the point of view you have just been emphasizing? Yes, 



154 The Imperishable Heart 

I am: and purposely. Because it is so easy, in the affairs 
of the soul, to mistake license for liberty, and to go beyond 
bounds. It is so easy, in seeking to be spiritually-minded, 
to get away up beyond the atmosphere altogether into a 
realm that is insubstantial and ineffectual. But, as the 
Apostle says, "the life which I now live in the flesh I live 
by the faith of the Son of God ;" and we have to take ac- 
count of certain conditions and limitations. While it is 
true that we are children of Eternity, it is also true that 
we are creatures of a Day ; and we need to know what to 
do with each single day. The artists, you know, have 
usually painted the Hours with wings; because they fly 
fully oftener than they creep. Truly, "the time is short." 
Yes, too short for trifling. Too short — far too short — 
for feeding our jealousies and nursing our grudges. Too 
short — far too short — for aimless (but never harmless) 
gossip. Too short — far too short — for haphazard meth- 
ods of work. Not that we are to make of life a fever- 
ish rush: for "he that believeth shall not make 
haste," and all good work requires a certain leisureliness. 
Nor that we are to be the slaves of a schedule — like a 
railroad train: for "where the Spirit of the Lord 
is, there is liberty," and all great work should wear an 
air of freedom. Only, we ought to know the value 
of Time; and how to "use" it, "as not abusing it." Many 
a man's success is attributable to nothing more nor less 
than that he "has learnt the secret of economizing his 
time," — that he has studied to be punctual, and to be 
orderly, and to "gather up the fragments" of his time 
instead of leaving them to waste. "So teach us to num- 
ber our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wis- 



The Divine Arithmetic 155 

dom." 

And I will say, next, Let us, "number our days" 
gratefully. 

How apt we are to remember the dull and rainy days, 
and to forget the bright and fair days! There are de- 
pressingly few Polly Anna's among us. The truth is, 
we too often begin at the wrong end in our calculations. 
We begin with the unpleasantnesses and the disappoint- 
ments : and, of course, it is quite a long time ere we come 
to the happier things. But suppose we begin with the 
happier things, — the chances are we may never get the 
length of the other things at all. "Keep your eyes open 
to your mercies," says Stevenson, "the man that forgets to 
be thankful has fallen asleep in life." 

I trust I am not thoughtless, nor unsympathetic: and 
I think I know the trials and thwartings of the human 
situation pretty well. But, oh, my friends, with it all, 
what great days — ay, what a host of great days — most of 
us have had! Days of simple, unaffected happiness; the 
memory of which we would not trade for anything. Days 
of usefulness; the knowledge of which assures us that 
we have not lived in vain. Times and seasons of mental 
emancipation and spiritual uplift; the blessing of which 
still abides with us, and keeps us in tune with the In- 
finite. Times and seasons of the sweet and pure ex- 
changes of Love and Friendship ; which are making music 
in our hearts for all time. "What shall I render unto 
the Lord for all His benefits toward me?" 
"Blow, blow, thou winter wind, 
Thou art not so unkind 



156 The Imperishable Heart 

As man's ingratitude; . . . 

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, 

Thou dost not bite so nigh 

As benefits forgot.'' 
My friends, there is something wrong somewhere — 
something wrong either with the way we have taken our 
joys or with the way we have taken our sorrows, or 
both — if w T e cannot say, every single soul of us, "Bless the 
Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: . 

I will declare Thy name among my brethren ; in 
the midst of the congregation will I praise Thee." 

And, if we are to ''number our days" gratefully, surely 
also we shall "number" them hopefully! 

Indeed, the one follows from the other: as the 
CXVth Psalm has it, with an inexorable simplicity of 
logic, "The Lord hath been mindful of us: He will 
bless us." 

Some of us have a fatalistic tendency of mind. We 
will take gloomy views of the days ahead. We refuse 
to "abound in hope." Things are going to disappoint us, 
— we are sure of it. 

Now, my friends, I know right well just what I am 
talking about here; because I am one of those who have 
the fatalistic bias. But, I tell you (as I try to tell my- 
self again and again), there is nothing we should fight- 
down and fight-out more determinedly. For I believe 
sufficiently in the philosophy of the New Thought to 
say that, if we habitually expect the days ahead to be 
disappointing, we are doing our best to make them so. 
Let us shake it of?, — this apprehensiveness, this hopeless- 



The Divine Arithmetic 157 

ness. It is not fair to ourselves. Still less is it fair to 
the keeping and providing God. We shall do well to 
get by heart — and to keep in our hearts — that great verse 
of Robert Browning's (so obviously inspired by the words 
of the Book Itself), 

"Grow old along with me! 
The best is yet to be, 
The last of life, for which the first was made: 
Our times are in His hand 
Who saith, 'A whole I planned, 
Youth shows but half ; trust God : see all nor be afraid !' " 

And so, last of all and to sum up all, I will say, Let 
us "number our days" as Children of Eternity. 

Not, Let us spend our days here wisely and purely 
and usefully; because they are few, and will soon be at 
an end. But, Let us spend our days here wisely and 
purely and usefully; that we may be ready for the more 
splendid opportunities and the larger tasks of "that new 
life, we blindly christen death." "Our life," it has 
been said, "is not a land-locked lake enclosed within the 
shore-lines of seventy years. It is an arm of the sea." 
Let our ships be builded, then, for the "larger waters." 
No small and flimsy craft will do: only "stately ships," 
which are stately souls. 

It is remarkable, indeed, how little JESUS says, 
specifically, about the Future Life. "He is never once 
weak or sentimental" about it: "He is very abstemious 
of explanation." But, could you possibly imagine Him 
saying, "This life is all: we have no everlasting Father; 
we have no abiding Home." Why, brethren, JESUS is 



158 The Imperishable Heart 

inexplicable on any such basis. His whole teaching, and 
His whole life and work, assume that "here we have no 
continuing city, but we seek one to come." He didn't 
need to say much about Human Immortality: He lived 
it, and graciously gave away the secret of it, and made 
men "wise unto salvation." 

"So teach us to number our days, that we may apply 
our hearts unto wisdom." 



XVI 
THE SUPERIOR BLESSEDNESS OF GIVING 

"It is more blessed to give than to receive." — Acts XX, 

35- 

T DON'T know what you think, my friends; but there 
is no portion of Scripture that I like better, or that 
it does me more good to read, than this Farewell Address 
of St. Paul to the "elders of the Church" of Ephesus. 
It is at once so frank and so fervent; _yet marked by a 
fine restraint. Here we have a man of high ideals and 
of many toils and trials sizing-himself-up (so to speak) ; 
yet without a trace of egotism. And — to be sure — the 
whole thing, from beginning to end, is redolent of grace, 
saturated with the wholesome perfume of the Gospel. 
No one, it seems to me, (no one) can read these words 
of the Christian Apostle — while keeping the circum- 
stances well in mind — without gaining a new apprecia- 
tion of the man and of his message and of his Master. 
No wonder we read that, after the address and the prayer 
which followed it (how I should have liked to hear that 
prayer!), — no wonder we read, then, that "they all wept 
sore, and fell on Paul's neck, and kissed him, sorrowing 
most of all for the words which he spake, that they 
should see his face no more." Ay, there are some faces 
that are inspirations: because they have souls behind 
them. 

But there is one very special point of interest in this 
159 



160 The Imperishable Heart 

Miletus address of St. Paul : namely, that it preserves for 
us a wonderful saying of the Master Himself, which is 
not to be found in any of the four Gospels; although, to 
be sure, the spirit of it is in all of Jesus' teaching. 
Moreover, the saying in question is the only reported say- 
ing of Jesus in the New Testament outside of the Gospels. 
"I have showed you all things," says the Apostle (in verse 
35 here), "how that ... ye ought to support the 
weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, 
how He said, It is more blessed to give than to receive." 

Well, are we not inclined at once to say, 'How fortun- 
ate — how good — that that saying of the Master has been 
preserved for us here!' And, are we not moved to say, 
further, 'How many wonderful things Jesus must have 
said, which have not been recorded: would that we had 
more of them!' (for, after all, the Gospel Record is but 
a fragment). 

Then, how like Jesus to have said just that, "It is 
more blessed to give than to receive!" He simply must 
have said it: it is no invention of St. Paul. Yes, there 
are some things which are "too good" not "to be true." 
And that is one of the distinctions of the teaching of 
Jesus: that it is beyond question, because it is by far the 
best that we know — and better by far than we ourselves 
could have conceived. . . . 

"The words of the Lord Jesus, how HE said, It is 
more blessed to give than to receive." 

"Stuff and nonsense," says the man of the world, "it 
is the other way about, — it is more blessed to receive 
than to give — and everybody thinks so : what we give im- 



The Superior Blessedness of Giving 161 

poverishes us and depresses us — less or more, while what 
we get — either by our own toil or in gift — enriches us 
and gladdens us." 

Of course, my friends, we are not surprised that the 
crass worldlings should think so — and say so : those down- 
rightly and avowedly selfish people of the 'Iago' type, 
"Who, trimm'd in forms and visages of duty, 
Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves, 
. . . and when they have lined their coats 
Do themselves homage." 

But, my friends, putting aside the crass worldling, there 
is — as distinguished from the man who is consciously and 
fervently "in Christ" — (there is) the ordinary man of 
the world who is not entirely untouched "to fine issues": 
the man in the street, as it is so often put. 

Well, I wish to say that he knows perfectly well — and 
is often moved to admit — that "it is more blessed to give 
than to receive." That is, if he is a normally healthy hu- 
man — mentally and morally. 

Let me suppose he is a manufacturer; with a sufficient 
plant, with a number of workmen in his employ, ship- 
ping orders from time to time to various parts of the 
world, and receiving payment for value given. Do you 
mean to tell me that the only thing he thinks about are his 
profits, that the only thing which gives him any satisfac- 
tion at all is the return he is getting for his invested cap- 
ital? I simply don't believe it. I believe, rather, that 
deep down in that man's nature (if he is a man at all — 
and welcomes a man's job) there is the satisfaction of be- 
ing a 'producer,' the satisfaction of knowing that he is 



1 62 The Imperishable Heart 

giving this busy world something that it needs — perhaps 
something that only his factory can turn out, the satisfac- 
tion that by his gifts of output he is counting for some- 
thing in this world as God has made it. Ay, and I be- 
lieve that, in many cases, that satisfaction is even more 
prized by a man than the satisfaction of 'making good 
money.' Indeed, isn't that one chief reason why so many 
men who are eminently well-off are unwilling to retire 
from the activities of business? — they have a sort of 
suspicion that, when retired, they will have ceased to be 
producers — will have ceased to be dynamic factors in the 
world's progress, no matter how much money may still 
continue to come in to them. They have a lurking per- 
suasion, in short, that "it is more blessed to give than to 
receive." 

Or, take the case of a musical artist. What is "the 
head and front" of his pleasure — of his artistic 'blessed- 
ness'? It is (or I am very far cheated) giving of his 
best to other people, — his best of interpretation and of up- 
lift and of the contagion of joy. He doesn't despise 
whatever fees he may get. He probably likes applause 
and appreciation. Moreover, he is glad of all he can 
get, in the way of hints and helps, from other artists. 
And so forth. But the 'blessing' of his life-work — the 
true happiness of it — the thing that really pays about it 
all is what he 'gives' (his best) and how he gives it (in 
the best way he can). To be always getting, getting, 
getting is only to exist: but giving means living. As a 
hymn-writer of the eighteenth century has put it, 
"That man may last, but never lives, 
Who much receives, but nothing gives." 



The Superior Blessedness of Giving 163 

Yes, there is, in a healthy human, a sort of creative in- 
stinct. We wish to get something done, and not just 
to be always done-for. We rejoice in enterprise, fully 
more than in entertainment. Indeed, I believe that is 
the reason why some men wish to get up on their feet 
and speak — instead of being mere listeners all the time. 
In many cases it is not just that they may 'hear them- 
selves speak:' it is, rather, that they are not going to be 
content with being passive humans, — they mean to be 
active humans. Sometimes, of course, the outcome of 
that sort of ambition is rather tiresome and irritating. 
But, my friends, I, for one, am always ready to welcome 
anything that means life, anything that means originality, 
anything that means that a fellow wishes to get something 
done. To quote Carlyle again (the same passage that I 
had occasion to use the other Sunday), — " Produce! 
Produce! Were it but the pitifullest infinitesimal frac- 
tion of a Product, produce it, in God's name! 'Tis the 
utmost thou hast in thee? Out with it, then." 

Then, what about — say — a physician or a surgeon de- 
voting his time and skill and his nerve-energy and his 
thought to the saving of human life? Whoever, in such 
case, 'receives' new health and new hope is, indeed, to be 
counted happy. But is the 'giver,' in such case, not to be 
counted happy also, — if not, indeed, the happier of the 
two? I read, just the other day, of an American Med- 
ical Missionary in Arabia (Dr. Paul Harrison), to whom 
not long ago an Arab brought one of his children for 
treatment. The only hope of a cure was to have a 
transfusion of blood, and Dr. Harrison asked the father 
if he would allow -a vein in his arm to be opened that 



104 The Imperishable Heart 

some of his blood might be passed to his child. As one 
might have almost expected in the case of a superstitious 
man of the desert, he refused unequivocally. But what 
was his astanishment when he saw Dr. Harrison quietly 
open a vein in his own arm and transmit some of his 
blood to the child? Truly, that child was "blessed" in 
'receiving' the new life. Ay, but what about the 'blessed- 
ness' of the man who 'gave' it? Was it not — there and 
then — even "more blessed to give than to receive?" Yes, 
my friends, I believe it was "more blessed." 

For, what is like the content of that wonderful 
Bible word "blessed?" We have never yet pluck'd 
out the heart of its mystery.' You will not find the full 
meaning of the word "blessed" in any dictionary. It 
cannot be precisely defined. Because it implies something 
of the mystic touch of the Spirit of Christ — something of 
"the peace of God which passeth all understanding." 
Only, I think I can tell — sometimes in fifteen or twenty 
minutes — whether or not a given individual is "blessed." 
Some men and women I know, have been disappointed 
and tried so as almost to 'beggar description :' neverthe- 
less there is no slightest doubt that they are "blessed." 
Other men and women I know are apparently prosperous 
and care-free: nevertheless I am persuaded that they are 
not "blessed." No, it is neither fortune nor favor that 
makes one "blessed." It is the presence in oneself of 
"the mind of Christ;" the magnetism of the Holy Spirit; 
the poise and peace that come of being 'in tune with the 
Infinite.' 

And so, my friends, — to advance a stage now — "where 



The Superior Blessedness of Giving 165 

the Spirit of the Lord is" there is no possible room for 
doubt that "it is more blessed to give than to receive." 

For instance, what about a truly Christ-loving and 
Christ-inspired Mother? How much her children owe 
to her, — to her care, to her sweet and sanctifying influ- 
ence, to her nightly prayers! An incalculable debt, that. 
Ay, but are the children "more blessed" than the saintly 
mother? I trow not. For, mark you, it is not just a 
question of happiness (which, we are sometimes told, is 
the equivalent of 'blessedness.') No, it's something far 
better — far deeper — than 'happiness:' it is 'blessedness.' 

Then, which is better: to have a friend, or to be a 

friend? To my thinking, there is no question which is 

better. For if, according to Emerson, "a friend may 

well be reckoned the masterpiece of Nature," then what 

can be "more blessed" than to be such a masterpiece? 

And surely to be to a fellow-human a very friend "in 

Christ's stead" is the very acme of distinction and of 

blessedness. Yes, indeed, to "give" in such wise is to 

have the "double portion" of friendship's blessing: on 

the principle expressed by Russell Lowell, when he says, 

"Be noble! and the nobleness which lies 

In other men, sleeping but never dead, 

Will rise in majesty to meet thine own." 

Or, again, "blessed" as it is to "receive" comfort and 
encouragement and heart-of-grace, is it not even "more 
blessed" to be privileged to "give" such things? It is 
told of Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great portrait-painter of 
the 1 8th century, whose picture entitled 'Simplicity' all 
of you must know from the prints of it, (it is told of 
him) that once when he was appealed-to by a younger 



1 66 The Imperishable Heart 

artist who was in financial straights, he called upon the 
younger man and ascertained the amount of his indebted- 
ness. It was forty pounds English (the equivalent of 
$200). Well, after interviewing the young man, Sir 
Joshua prepared to leave; and (according to the 'Percy 
Anecdotes/ where the story is told) "he took him by 
the hand, and, after pressing it in a friendly manner, he 
hurried off, with that kind of triumph in his heart which 
the exalted of human kind alone can experience, while the 
astonished artist found that he had left in his hand a 
bank-note for a hundred pounds" (or, $500). Which 
was really the happier man? Anyhow, which was the 
more "blessed" of the two? Was it not the 'giver' on 
that occasion ? — for will you note that passage in the story 
(referring to Sir Joshua), "With that kind of triumph 
in his heart which the exalted of human kind alone can 
experience!" 

And, do you know, my friends, I am sometimes secretly 
half-glad that the Christian ministry is rather an under- 
paid profession. For, I tell you, we preachers do not 
wish to be tempted in any way whatever to think that it 
is more blessed to receive than to give. This is the "joy 
and crown" of a preacher's work, — if he is faithful and 
true: "to give" of his best, in the very spirit of the Mas- 
ter Himself, for the comfort and the uplift and the inspir- 
ation of his fellow-humans. And there is infinitely more 
joy, let me tell you, for the ambassador of Christ, in 
that 'giving' than in all his possible getting. Yes, friends, 
I have been gladdened and honored, from time to time, 
by the gratitude (frequently very substantially expressed) 
of those whom I have tried to encourage and to hearten. 



The Superior Blessedness of Giving 167 

And in some instances the gratitude has obviously been 
very deep and heart-felt. But seldom has their souls' joy 
out-topped mine at being used by the Father to give "the 
garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness:" for "it is 
more blessed to give than to receive." 

Let me tell you about an elderly woman in my former 
Church over the water. She was very poor, and it was 
my duty to take to her, periodically, a certain sum of 
money which was her due according to our Church's pro- 
vision. Well, on each of these occasions she gave me a 
small sum of money for the Missionary work of the 
Church, — because, spite of her humble circumstances, she 
had the international mind and the world-vision. I almost 
felt, at first, as if I were stealing — to take that contribu- 
tion (small as it was, comparatively). But it was not 
long ere I discovered that that woman would have been 
more chagrined had I refused her missionary contribu- 
tion than had I appeared at her home on the day expected 
without her allowance. She believed — she knew — that "it 
is more blessed to give than to receive". Yes, she often 
experienced 'that kind of triumph in the heart which the 
exalted of human kind alone can experience'. 

And, my friends, has it not been proved beyond all 
possibility of dispute that the 'giving' Church is the 
Church that is "blessed?" Not necessarily the wealthy 
Church. No, no: but the Church which knows what 
it is to 'give' both prayers and pence, as well as to enjoy 
these things: the Church which looks beyond its own cir- 
cle of folk, and plans by every means it knows for the 
whole Community in which it stands and for the whole 
World to which it is related "in Christ:" the Church 



1 68 The Imperishable Heart 

which understands — and acts upon the understanding — 
that "the more religion we export, the more we possess," 
for "love grows by exercise." 

"I have showed you," says St. Paul, then, "(I have 
showed you) . . . how that ... ye ought . 

. . to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how 
HE said, It is more blessed to give than to receive." And, 
O my friends, how "the LORD JESUS" practised as 
He preached! How He lived out the principle of these 
words of His! He 'gave,' and 'gave,' and 'gave.' He 
gave His life. He "gave Himself." What princely 
'giving!' And, how infinitely "blessed!" 

Ay, we say, with the angelic voices of the Book of 
Revelation, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to re- 
ceive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and 
honour, and glory, and blessing." And we count Him 
"blessed," we are glad to count Him "blessed," to be 
''receiving' these things. But, brethren, the 'blessedness' 
of our Saviour's 'receiving' the homage of men and of 
angels is not to be compared to the 'blessedness' of His 
'giving' (His 'giving Himself) — with all that it has 
meant — and means today — for human hearts and for the 
'touching' of human life "to immortality." And so, was 
it not said, long before Christ came to earth, "And men 
shall be blessed in Him" and "all nations shall call HIM 
Blessed"? 



XVII 

DISHONORABLE EXEMPTION FROM 
SERVICE 

"And the officers shall speak further unto the people, and 
they shall say. What man is there that is fearful 
and fainthearted? Let him go and return unto 
his house, lest his brethren s heart faint as well as 
his." — Deuteronomy XX, 8. 

TELL you, my friends, these old Hebrew documents 
are well worth the reading: even those of them which, 
on a first perusal, appear all too antiquated and uninter- 
esting. Here, for example, — in this chapter of Deu- 
teronomy — we have an excerpt (so to speak) from the 
Army Orders of the Hebrews. The children of Israel 
were, at the time referred to, "a camp" rather than "a 
kingdom, — entering upon an enemy's country, and not 
yet settled in a country of their own; and, besides the 
war they were now entering upon in order to their set- 
tlement, even after their settlement they could neither 
protect nor enlarge their coast without hearing the alarms 
of war. It was therefore needful that they should have 
directions given them in their military affairs." They are 
no sealed and secret orders, either, that are given here; 
but open and for all. 

The chief point seems to be that they are on no account 
to be afraid: and the call-to-courage is based on the as- 
surance that GOD would be with them. 

Then, certain exemptions are allowed: mostly in favor 
169 



170 The Imperishable Heart 

of those who happen, on the approach of war, to have 
some important undertakings on hand — especially in the 
way of home-making (an illustration, by the way, of the 
humaneness of the Mosaic code). 

Then comes another kind of exemption — rather a dis- 
honorable exemption for those whom it should concern: 
the exemption of the "fearful and fainthearted." They 
were not wanted in the ranks: "And the officers shall 
speak further unto the people, and they shall say, What 
man is there that is fearful and fainthearted? let him go 
and return unto his house, lest his brethren's heart faint 
as well as his heart." 

There are, as you are aware, various tests of 
soldiership proposed in most civilized countries. A 
man must not be over a certain age, nor under 
a certain height. He must be a healthy human: in par- 
ticular, should have good teeth and good eye-sight, and 
should have his feet in good walking-trim. And so 
forth. But there are other tests of soldiership besides 
these, — more spiritual tests. For instance, it has been 
said that 'a soldier's first duty is obedience, and his sec- 
ond duty obedience, and his third duty obedience.' The 
soldier should be "arm'd with resolution." And doesn't 
Shakespeare say, 

"Ambition, 

"The soldier's virtue, rather makes choice of loss, 

"Than gain which darkens him?" 
In other words, besides good eye-sight and good teeth and 
so many cubits of stature, the true soldier must have pluck 
and courage and stout-heartedness. The "fearful and 



Dishonorable Exemption From Service 17 1 

faint-hearted" are better at home. They are perhaps not 
much use at home, either, — these cravens: but on the 
battlefield they are hopeless. No use themselves, and dis- 
couragers of others: ''let him go and return unto his 
house, lest his brethren's heart faint as well as his heart." 
No room in the army for the men of 'buts' and 'ifs' : 
whether the army be the battalions of a nation or the 
battalions of Christ's Kingdom. . . . "The fearful 
and fainthearted" have lost more battles than have been 
lost through lack of men or lack of munitions. And, the 
"fearful and fainthearted" have done more to retard the 
progress of the Kingdom of God on earth than the oppo- 
sition of the devil himself. 

You remember how Gideon — Israel's famous 'judge' — 
thinned out his army. Taking the hint from God Him- 
self, he made up his mind to have picked men only — out 
of a following of thirty-two thousand. A proclamation 
was made accordingly, in these terms, — "Whosoever is 
fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early from 
mount Gilead." "And," we read, "there returned of 
the people twenty and two thousand; and there re- 
mained ten thousand." But yet a further test was pro- 
posed; until ultimately only Gideon and his "three hun- 
dred" were left — tried and not "found wanting" — "And 
the LORD said unto Gideon, By the three hundred men 

. . . will I save you . . . ; and let all the 
other people go every man unto his place." 

It is told of a famous general that, on one occasion, 
wishing to inspire his men with something of his own 
courage and determination, he took his position in the 
forefront of the battle, thus exposing himself to the hot- 



172 The Imperishable Heart 

test fire . . . An affectionate but over-cautious 
friend, seeing him in such peril, darted forward, seized 
him by the arm, and exclaimed, 'Retire, I beseech you, 
from this shower of bullets, or you will be a dead man!' 
'Sir,' said the general, releasing himself from his friend's 
grasp, 'if I had been afraid of bullets, I should have 
quitted the profession of a soldier long ago.' 

I was reading lately about a Scottish chaplain with 
the forces in the north of France. During one of the 
severest and bloodiest fights of the war in that region he 
was being convoyed by an officer through a stretch of 
wood, where he heard the crackle of the bullets among 
the trees about his very ears. He didn't quite like it, 
and said something to that effect to the officer; but the 
officer only replied, Scotch fashion, "Tut, man, the bul- 
lets that ye hear '11 no do ye ony harm." 

And then, in a fine passage of Shakespeare's 'Macbeth' 
you have the test of true soldiership brought out by the 
masterhand : — 

(Ross) "Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt: 
He only lived but till he was a man: 
The which no sooner had his prowess con- 
firmed 
In the unshrinking station where he fought, 
But like a man he died." 
(Siward) "Then he is dead?" 

(Ross) "Ay and brought off the field: your cause of 
sorrow 
Must not be measured by his worth, for then 
It hath no end." 
(Siward) "Had he his hurts before?" 



Dishonorable Exemption From Service 1 73 

(Ross) "Ay, on the front." 

(Siward) "Why then, God's soldier be he! 

Had I as many sons as I have hairs, 
I would not wish them to a fairer death." . . . 

"Had he his hurts before? . . . Ay, on the front." 
There's a test for us, my friends! Are we sulking — or 
'marching breast-forward'? Are we complaining of our 
opportunities — or doing our level best just where we 
are? Are we quarreling with our tools — instead of with 
our skill, and with our lack-of-diligence, and lack-of- 
fervor, and what not? Can we say, amid all our diffi- 
culties and disappointments and dangers, 
"Out of the night that covers me, 
Black as the pit from pole to pole, 
I thank whatever gods may be 
For my unconquerable soul. 

"In the fell clutch of circumstance 
I have not winced nor cried aloud : 
Under the bludgeons of chance 
My head is bloody, but unbowed. 

"Beyond the place of wrath and tears 
Looms but the horror of the shade : 
And yet the menace of the years 

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid" ? 

Ay, "nothing weakens the hands," says an old writer 
on this very passage, "(nothing weakens the hands) so 
much as that which makes the heart tremble." We have 
much need, then, (every one of us) to ask God to ful- 



174 The Imperishable Heart 

fill in us His promise to 'strengthen our hearts/ For 
there are serious problems to be thought-out these days, 
and great things to be done, by the citizens of this Re- 
public: especially by those of us who reckon ourselves cit- 
izens, as well, of Christ's Kingdom. It is no time for a 
dilettante type of Christianity: it is the red-blooded type 
that the times call for. " Preparedness" or no "prepared- 
ness" (as the word is being used just now of army and 
navy), we must be prepared to be 'good soldiers of 
Jesus Christ,' prepared to be loyal to His Spirit of Love 
and Self-giving, prepared to refuse to lower the Flag of 
the Gospel — to which, you and I surely hold, every one 
of the world's flags (the 'Stars and Stripes' with the rest 
of them) must dip in acknowledgment of CHRIST'S 
Mastery. 

Mark you, I am not one of those who are scared by a 
premonition of the imminent invasion of this Country. 
I am thinking, just now, along other lines (albeit I trust 
I am not careless about our national security). I am 
wondering "what spirit" the people of this Country are 
going to evince, and are going to be moved by and ruled 
by, in the days right ahead of us. And I am wondering 
whether, if it is to be the Spirit of CHRIST, we shall 
have the courage to be true to it at all hazards — to walk 
"with this high goal in sight, 
"To speak, to do, to sanction only Right, 

"Though very heaven should fall!" . . . 
And so, "what man is there that is fearful and faint- 
hearted? let him go and return unto his house, lest his 
brethren's heart faint, as well as his." 



Dishonorable Exemption From Service 175 

Ah yes: for the worst of it is that 'fear' is catching — 
'faintheartedness' contagious: "lest his brethren's heart 
faint as well as his." 

My friends, do we half realize how much our moods 
and manners affect our companions-by-the-way: how 
apt our faith or our 'fear' is to make them faithful or 
"fearful"? "For none of us liveth unto himself: . 

. . and whether one member suffer, all the members 
suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the mem- 
bers rejoice with it." The truth is, every grace of char- 
acter and every fault of character "goes to work in the 
world," and makes its impression. If you are generous, 
you are silently persuading your companions-of-the-way 
to generosity. If you are industrious, you are silently in- 
viting and moving them to get busy. If you are cheerful 
and hopeful, you are lightening their faces and their 
hearts. While, on the other hand, if you are stingy, you 
make other people stingy. If you are a 'slacker' and a 
'quitter,' you infect other people with the same poison. If 
you are morose and allow yourself to be too easily de- 
pressed, you becloud and depress 'the other fellow.' Some- 
times, perhaps, a man's faults and vices drive us, by a re- 
coil of digust, to consider and mend our own ways: but 
fully oftener — and more especially in the case of taints 
and twists of disposition — we catch the infection. And 
so, "what man is there that is fearful and fainthearted? 
let him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren's 
heart faint as well as his." 

Ay, that's the trouble of it. If our moral and spiritual 
diseases were self-contained and non-contagious, it 
wouldn't be so bad : but they have their bacilli, which leap 



176 The Imperishable Heart 

out (the little imps!) wherever they think they can fasten. 
"Destroy not him with thy meat," says St. Paul, you 
remember, in a well-known passage where he is dealing 
with the contagiousness of conduct, "(destroy not him 
with thy meat) for whom Christ died." Similarly, by a 
fair implication, "Destroy not him with thy pride, or thy 
crankiness, or thy cowardice, or thy faithlessness, — for 
whom Christ died." 

"Let us therefore follow after the things which make 
for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another." 

And now, my friends, just a word or two in closing 
on How to Deal with the "fearful and fainthearted." 

There are two ways of dealing with them. We may 
call them, respectively, the Quick way and the Quicken- 
ing way; or the Mandatory way and the Magnetic way. 

The quick, or mandatory, way is the way spoken of in 
our text: "what man is there that is fearful and faint- 
hearted? let him go and return unto his house." He is 
not wanted. Let him get out. Yes, on occasion that is 
the only way to deal with certain types of people: be it 
'faintheartedness' that is their fault, or be it frivolity 
in presence of serious issues, or be it profane or unclean 
speech, or what not. That is, on occasion, the only way 
to deal with them, — to tell them peremptorily that they 
are not wanted. It may be hard, sometimes, both for 
the man who is 'fired' and for the man who 'fires' him. 
But if it is necessary, 

"then 't were well 
"It were done quickly." 

"But, brethren, looking Co the farther issues, there is "a 



Dishonorable Exemption From Service 177 

more excellent way:" the quickening, or magnetic, way. 
You have it suggested in that most beautiful and most 
heartening chapter of Isaiah (the XXXVth) — on this 
wise, "Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the 
feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be 
strong, fear not." You have it outlined, again, in one of 
St. Paul's Epistles — on this wise, "Now we exhort you, 
brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble- 
minded, support the weak, be patient toward all men." 
It is, in fact, the Gospel way of dealing with people, — espe- 
cially those who are naturally sensitive and timid and 
hopeless — and all who are easily discouraged. It is, I 
say, the Gospel way of dealing with such folk: quicken- 
ing and magnetic, — getting such folk made-over and en- 
ergized anew by the infusion of the grace of God. Ah 
yes, my friends, let us never forget that — to use His own 
words — our Lord Jesus Christ came to our feeble and 
broken humanity "not ... to destroy, but to ful- 
fill;" — "not to condemn, but to save." He had special 
regard to, and He took pains to seek-out and re-magnetize 
and to give-new-heart-of -grace-to, the "least" and the 
"last" and the "lost." Sometimes we are like to be very 
impatient and very drastic with the "fearful and faint- 
hearted;" ay, and with hosts of other people who are 
weak just where we, perhaps, are strong. Well, my 
friends, suppose we try the "more excellent way," — the 
way of the Master, — the Gospel way, — the way that St. 
Paul indicates when he says, "To the weak became I as 
weak, that I might gain the weak." And mark you 
this, my friends ; we must never lose faith in the wonder- 
working power of Grace — in the power of the Spirit 



178 The Imperishable Heart 

of Christ to remake. There are hundreds of men and 
women in the world today who are saying, with great 
variety of content to the words indeed — but all in praise 
of redeeming grace, (there are hundreds of men and 
women . . . who are saying), "One thing I know, 
that, whereas I was blind, now I see." Brethren, in 
dealing with ourselves and with our near comrades and 
with the whole human situation, — "if GOD be for us!" — 
what an Ally to have — even HE Who says, "Behold, 
I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there anything 
too hard for ME?" 



XVIII 
REFRESHMENT OF SPIRIT 

"For they have refreshed my spirit." — I Corinthians 
XVI, 1 8. 

Q T. PAUL closes each of his Epistles with a chapter, 
or part of a chapter, composed of greetings — expres- 
sions of kind remembrance and good will. Some of these 
'greetings'-sections contain quite a number of proper 
names, — not a few of which are the names of men and 
women who are not elsewhere referred to. But, if you 
read with seeing eyes and 'understanding hearts,' you dis- 
cover that the 'greetings'-sections of St. Paul's Epistles 
are not just catalogues of proper names. They are more 
and better than that. They contain some beautiful 
touches, — touches of spiritual discernment and spiritual 
appreciation, and some wonderfully astute and hearten- 
ing revelations of character. It would be a pity, then, to 
pass them over lightly. 

Here, for instance, speaking of a certain trio of indi- 
viduals by name — Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achai- 
cus — he says he is glad of their coming (that is, their 
coming from the Church at Corinth, to which the Epis- 
tle is about to be sent, to the place where the Epistle is 
being written — probably Ephesus) : "I am glad of the 
coming of" these men; "for," he adds, "they have re- 
freshed my spirit." 

Now, what do we know of these three men? Well, 
of Stephanas we are told that he and his "house" were 
179 



180 The Imperishable Heart 

"the first fruits of Achaia:" that is to say, the first fam- 
ily in Southern Greece to join the Church. Of the other 
two — Fortunatus and Achaicus — we know nothing except 
what is said here. 

No great material for a triple biography! No: but 
what is said here of these three men is to their everlast- 
ing credit and honor; and their names are on our lips 
today as the names of three men who were "boosters," 
who put heart into a fourth man — of greater caliber 
than themselves. By their "coming" to the Apostle — 
hard-wrought and weary as he probably was — (by their 
"coming" to the Apostle) at a particular season, and — 
we may assume — by their good report of Christian 
progress in the city of Corinth, and by their wise and 
friendly words they 'refreshed his spirit' — refreshed the 
spirit of a great and good and useful man. 

They did well — both for him and for themselves, and 
for their common Master. "For they have refreshed my 
spirit." 

Yes, mark you, if those who are not so able nor so 
proficient-in-character-and-usefulness as you are, are ad- 
vantaged by your sympathy and your help; those also 
who are abler and better than you are, are advantaged 
by these things. They are not, as you might suppose, in- 
dependent of you and your encouragement. And so it has 
been said, by a very discerning soul, "To illuminate for 
an instant the depths of a deep soul, to cheer those who 
bear by sympathy the burdens of so many sorrow-laden 
hearts and suffering lives, is to me a blessing and a 
precious privilege. There is a sort of religious joy in 
helping to renew the strength and courage of noble minds. 



Refreshment of Spirit 181 

We are surprised to find ourselves the possessors of a 
power of which we are not worthy, and we long to exer- 
cise it purely and seriously." How beautifully true! And 
what a tribute to the spiritual possibilities of usefulness 
of those who may be of meager equipment and of humble 
station ! 

"They have refreshed my spirit:" they have encouraged 
me: they have given me heartening (and I needed it). 

How much we all need that type of 'refreshment!' 
Spiritual 'refreshment.' Some new uplift. Some new 
elasticity of soul. A fresh draught of the "water of life." 
For the world is "sore with many sorrows, many blows, 
and we know not how much good a tender voice and a 
soft hand may do." 

The Apostle does not say precisely how these three men 
'refreshed his spirit.' He simply says, "I am glad of 
their coming; . . . for that which was lacking on 
your part they have supplied" (in other words, their 
being with me is just as if you were all with me in 
heartening fellowship). 

"I am glad of their coming." Just their "coming." 
O yes, it is wonderful how little is needed, sometimes, 
to 'refresh our spirits.' Suppose I read you a short let- 
ter I received the other day. It reached me last Tuesday 
morning, and is from Dr. Butler — whose talk from this 
platform a few weeks ago was such a blessing to us all :— 
"January 18th, 1915, (that was Monday): Dear Mr. 
Buchanan, Your men have a rich treat in store in hearing 
tomorrow night! Wish I could be there to hear 



1 82 The Imperishable Heart 

him again. I go to Cleveland next Sunday to assist in 
the campaign for Relief and Sustentation. Shall not soon 
forget the delightful day I spent with you and your peo- 
ple. Very kind personal regards, — sincerely yours, 
Charles S. Butler." Dr. Butler didn't need, by any 
means, to write that letter; but I am glad he did, for 
it "refreshed my spirit." The spontaneity of it, the kind- 
ness of it, the underlying assumption that a great group 
of us are all engaged in the same work — and need the 
same sort of heartening — and that we are glad to rejoice 
with one another when it is time to rejoice: these things 
appealed to me like the sound of fine music or like an 
exhilarating breeze from the hills. 

I have said, mark you, that the Doctor didnt need to 
write that letter. But, brethren, many times it is the 
things we don't need to do, but which we do for love's 
sake — for Christ's sake, that are the best things we do, 
and the most distinctively Christian. If we only did what 
we needed to do in this world, life would be a mighty 
bare and lustreless and unexhilarating affair. You re- 
member how Jesus said, "If ye love them which love 
you . . . and if ye salute your brethren only, what 
do ye more than others?" In other words, if we respect 
our natural affinities only, and if we do only what we are 
obliged to do — to save our skins or to keep up our repu- 
tation, and so forth; why! then we are not rising above 
the common level of unregenerate humanity. We must 
go at least one better than that, if we have felt the touch 
of the Spirit of Christ. Or, as Christ Himself put it, 
in the same talk from which I have just quoted, "Whoso- 
ever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain." 



Refreshment of Spirit 183 

Yes, it is going the second mile — when we do not need to, 
as a matter of obligation — (it is going the second mile) 
that justifies us in saying that "we have the mind of 
Christ." . . . 

"They have refreshed my spirit' 1 Think and speak as 
we will about the apparent materialism of people, what the 
vast majority of normal men and women most long-for 
is 'refreshment of spirit,' uplift of soul, heartening. They 
do not wish to be insulted by being perpetually appealed- 
to on the lower plane. They do not wish to be talked- 
to and treated as if they were mere animals — 

"sheep or goats 
"That nourish a blind life within the brain." 
They have souls, they "hold of God" : and they wish to 
be dealt-with accordingly. 

To be sure, refreshment of body is of great moment. 
Indeed, many a time the immediate and obvious way to 
refresh a man's spirit is to give him some material assist- 
ance, — to give him a good square meal, or to let him have 
a few dollars. And there are some people to whom we 
should be ashamed to make the spiritual appeal until we 
have contrived to make their surroundings or their work- 
ing conditions more congenial and more human. 

But, brethren, every human knows perfectly well that 
"Man doth not live by bread alone, 
But all that cometh from the throne" ; 
that he needs the food of the soul. 

And, I tell you, some of you who have perhaps not 
studied human nature as I have would wonder 
how keen is the human soul-hunger, and how grateful 



184 The Imperishable Heart 

most folk are for the higher appeals and the deeper con- 
solations. Ay, let us never forget that there is in this 
world a great deal of spiritual weariness, of dishearten- 
ment; and the gladdest thing many persons can say of 
their ' 'helpers and friends" is that 'they have refreshed 
their spirits.' 

Unfortunately there are some individuals here and 
there busy doing the very opposite thing. Instead of 're- 
freshing the spirits' of their fellows, they are doing their 
worst to wear them out, to tire them beyond endurance, 
to break them. By perpetually nagging and kicking, or 
by one heinous device after another, they are trying to dis- 
courage and to down people. And in some cases the 
thing is being done with deliberately devilish diligence. 
Needless to say, it is wicked — the very worst kind of 
wickedness; and one is almost afraid to think what will 
be the fate of such inhuman schemers. Only, there is this 
to say — thank God: that for every two or three individ- 
uals who are discouraged and downed by such scoundrel- 
ism, there are dozens who do not heed it, who are, in 
fact, but confirmed and put on their mettle by it. Doesn't 
St. Paul say, in this same chapter, "A great door and 
effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adver- 
saries?" Not "but there are many adversaries;" but 
"and there are many adversaries," — as if the existence of 
the " adversaries" were a spur and an incentive to go in 
and win. 

Yes, but it would hardly do if there were none but 
"adversaries." Thank God, then, for the "helpers and 
friends of mankind:" those who are always for cheering 
us on our way and giving us a lift, those who "own . 



Refreshment of Spirit 185 

. . those welcome faces That bring sunshine to life's 
shadowed places," those who 'refresh our spirits.' They 
are to us, indeed, "in Christ's stead", — channels of His 
grace, of His counsel and His consolation. "Blessed are 
the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of 
God." 

Ay, "they shall be called the children of GOD." For 
God Himself — "the Father of mercies and the God of 
all comfort" — (God Himself) is the great Refresher of 
our spirits. In a kindly variety of ways HE is hearten- 
ing us and encouraging us day by day. "Blessed be the 
Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God 
of our salvation." 

No doubt there are many happenings which make it 
seem as if the Almighty were trying to weary us and to 
crush our spirits ; and some people are hard hit. But, my 
friends, if there is one thing to be guarded against with 
all our powers of assiduousness, it is focussing all our at- 
tention on the trials and tragedies of life. Let us keep 
our faces to the light as much as we can, and see the 
gifts and opportunities and joys of life. Why! there are 
the days, which, as Emerson says, "are ever divine, . 

. . of the least pretension, and of the greatest ca- 
pacity, of anything that exists." There are "the friendly 
stars" (as they have been called). There are the sights 
and sounds and scents, and the far horizons, of "God's 
Out-of-doors." There is the gift of sleep, — as free to 
the beggar as to the prince. And there is Music, which 
is "Love in search of a word." And there are our 
Friends, and our Books, and our Pictures. And, if there 



1 86 The Imperishable Heart 

be Good Health besides, is not our cup 'running over'? 
Truly, the "times of refreshing from the presence of the 
Lord" are with us yet, — every day and every night. And 
so. as the familiar Psalm has it, "It is a good thing 

. . . O most High, to show forth Thy loving kind- 
ness in the morning, and Thy faithfulness even" night." 

And then, best of all the Father's gifts of encourage- 
ment, and back of them all, is the Everlasting Gospel: the 
Gospel of forgiveness and restoration for the sin-sick and 
the sin-stained, the Gospel of liberty for the enthralled, 
the Gospel of good-cheer for the disappointed, the Gospel 
of consolation for the bereaved, the Gospel of opportunity 
— too — for the strong and the alert. "For they have 
refreshed my spirit."' How — think you — did they 're- 
fresh his spirit?" Not apart from CHRIST, you may be 
sure. O yes. my friends, if only the great body of 
Christ's men and women understood better the beauty 
and the satisfaction and the power of the Christian Gos- 
pel, and if only they would dare to apply the Gospel to 
the human situation in all the deepness and in all the 
wideness of its reach ; there would be far fewer weary 
and discouraged souls in the world than there are today, 
and far more people rejoicing in the 'refreshment of their 
spirits.'" . . . But to a large extent our eyes are yet 
holden, that we do not know HIM. 

And right here I should like to make an appeal — espe- 
cially to the MEN of Christendom. Here we have St. 
Paul saying (for he was human, and needed such 're- 
freshment') — here we have St. Paul saying, "For they 
have refreshed my spirit." And you remember how it is 
told us in the Old Testament that, when Saul had been 



Refreshment of Spirit 187 

chosen first king of Israel, "there went with him a band 
ui men, whose hearts God had touched." Well, here 
is what I wish to be at. Some of you men (and, mark 
you, I have in mind today the men of all our Churches and 
on the fringes of our Churches: for I always try to talk 
with the world-vision in my soul, and not provincially) 
— well, frankly, some of you men are not enthusiastic 
about the Church. Because, perhaps, you think there 
is too much hypocrisy, and too much time-serving, and 
too much petty jealousy, and what not, in the Church: 
or because, perhaps, you think that the Church is not do- 
ing anything like all that it might do, and the ministers 
(many of them) are not sufficiently equipped nor suf- 
ficiently up-to-date: or because, perhaps, — other reasons. 
And so you are not enthusiastic, as I have said; and you 
are content with being, so to speak, mere listeners and 
spectators, with contributions given for value received: 
but, all the while, with a certain critical aloofness as the 
atmosphere in which your thoughts about the Church 
move. But, men and brethren, that is not the way to 
make things better. All honor to the great multitude of 
noble women who are doing the work of the Kingdom 
and serving the Christian Church! Yet the Church 
of the Living God needs the men: needs the men to get 
behind the ministers (with all their inadequacy) — needs 
the men to line up with the ministers, and to work along 
with them. Yes, we need 'bands of men whose hearts 
God has touched' to 'refresh our spirits' and to strengthen 
our hands for a Work which is more needed today than 
ever it was, and to which, I believe, the world is more 
ready to respond today than it has been in long years. . 



1 88 The Imperishable Heart 

. . Now, please don't imagine that I am saying all 
this because I am personally discouraged. Usually when 
I am personally discouraged, I do not say so. But you 
men ought to be collectively discouraged that the Church 
is not doing more than it is — that the impact of Chris- 
tianity on the world is far too feeble yet: and you ought 
to end your discouragement by getting up and saying, 
"We must, we can, we will do it." 

And so now let me read the whole clause from which 
my text is taken: "For they have refreshed my spirit, 
and yours." 



XIX 

NO FUEL, NO FIRE 

"Where no wood is, there the fire goeth out" — Proverbs 
XXVI, 20. 

11*^X7 HERE no wood is, the fire goeth out." Or, as 
we might put it even more briefly, "No fuel, no 
fire." 

You see how the master-artist in proverb-writing ap- 
plies this particular proverb in the first instance. "Strife," 
or contention, is as 'a fire; heating the spirit, burning up 
all that is good, and putting families and societies into a 
flame.' Here, then, we are told how that fire of strife 
is usually kindled and kept burning; that we may know 
what to do — or what not to do — in order to let the fire 
'go out.' Stop putting on fuel: in other words, stop the 
tale-bearing. 

The Bible has some very terse and trenchant things to 
say about "tale-bearing" or "whispering." "Thou shalt 
not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people," 
says the old Hebrew Law: and you may be sure that 
was one of the sayings of "them of old time" which our 
Saviour did not repeal. In the passage before us this 
evening it is said, "The words of a talebearer are as 
wounds:" and in another chapter of the Book of Prov- 
erbs we read, "A whisperer separateth chief friends." 
Then in his Epistle to the Romans, in a catalogue of 
those types of people who 'do not like to retain God in 
189 



190 The Imperishable Heart 

their knowledge,' but have been 'given over to a reprobate 
mind, to do those things which are not convenient,' in 
that catalogue St. Paul includes "whisperers." And, in 
writing to the Corinthians, the same Apostle expresses 
the fervent hope that he may find no "whisperings" 
among them when he reaches their city. 

I would refer you, also, to such Scripture sayings as 
these — on the taming of the tongue. "I will take heed 
to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue." "Set a 
watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my 
lips." "If any man among you seemeth to be religious, 
and bridleth not his tongue, . . . this man's re- 
ligion is vain." And, scores of similar passages. It would 
be interesting to make a collection of Scripture passages 
referring to the use of the tongue — the use of words — 
the right and godly use of words; which may be either 
the finest or the foulest things in this world of speaking 
humans. 

Well then, "Where no wood is, the fire goeth out: so 
where there is no talebearer, the strife ceaseth." — No 
fuel, no fire: so — no talebearer, no turmoil. 

The trouble is, so many people seem to delight in add- 
ing fuel to the fire in this matter. Some men would 
rather carry tales to 'whisper' with, than tools to work 
with ; and some women would rather be talebearers than 
childbearers. 

Of course the talebearer does not wish to be reckoned 
malicious; and so he usually introduces his blighting 
story by apparently implying that he — for one — does not 
wish to believe it. "Surely it can't be true that" — and 
so on. Or, "She's a fine girl, but it's a pity she" — and 



No Fuel, No Fire 191 

so on. And the devilish work of stoking the fire of scan- 
dal and strife has begun. "False apostles," says the New 
Testament, "deceitful workers, transforming themselves 
into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan 
Himself is transformed into an angel of light." 

Anyhow, it is all too rife in this world, — the 'tale- 
bearing,' the 'whispering:' and perhaps especially rife in 
the smaller communities of the civilized Countries, and 
many a cluster of human habitations which is beautiful to 
look upon and attractive to people of good taste is rotten 
with 'talebearing' and scandal-mongering. Ay, the flaw 
in the landscape may be, not in the place, but in the peo- 
ple. As you read in the Book of Genesis of a certain 
Palestinian town, "And Lot lifted up his eyes, and be- 
held all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered 
everywhere, . . . even as the garden of the Lord. 

. . . Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; 
and . . . dwelt in . . . Sodom. But the men 
of Sodom" (the people of the place) "were wicked and 
sinners before the Lord exceedingly." 

What, then, is to be the remedy for all the irritation 
and strife and shame that are caused by this 'talebear- 
ing?' Obviously, stop the talebearing. Cut it out. Cut 
off the supply of fuel. For "where no wood is, the fire 
goeth out:" no fuel, no fire. 

Unfortunately the fuel, in this matter, is not easy to 
get at, so that we may keep it out of the fire. It is not 
all gathered together in one place, — like the wood in a 
wood-pile or the coal in a coal-cellar. It is scattered all 
about. There is rather a quaint story told of St. Philip 
Neri, — a prominent Italian Churchman of the 16th cen- 



192 The Imperishable Heart 

tury; to whom, one day — in course of confession, a lady 
accused herself of having spread slanderous stories, and 
asked the famous priest how she might be cured. "Go," 
said he, "to the market, buy a chicken newly killed, and 
bring it to me, plucking its feathers all the way as you 
come back." The lady wondered how a dead chicken 
could help her to overcome her talebearing habit ; but she 
did as she had been told, and came back to the priest 
with the plucked chicken. "Now," said he, "retrace 
your steps, and bring me all the feathers you have scat- 
tered." "But that is impossible," she replied, "I cast 
the feathers carelessly, and the wind (for it is breezy to- 
day) must have carried them away: how can I gather 
them all together again?" "Ah," said the priest, "that 
is exactly like your slanderous tales and whisperings. 
They have been scattered about in all directions, and 
you cannot take them back. Give the thing up." "Where 
no wood is, the fire goeth out: so where there is no tale- 
bearer . . . ." 

And similarly, my friends, with other bad feeders of 
unwelcome and disastrous fires. 

If certain articles of diet are injuring your health and 
your efficiency, — stop the supply. If some habit of life 
is spoiling you mentally and ruining your soul, — cut it 
out. If some form of recreation or amusement is like 
to get too strong a hold of you, so that you are neglecting 
your appointed life-work and taking no time for self- 
culture, — (to say the least of it) reduce the quantity 
of fuel. If a certain type of reading is making you 
unwholesomely discontented and restless, or is feeding 
the fires of your baser passions, — stop getting that kind 



No Fuel , No Fire 193 

of book. 

The truth is, brethren, while "there is . . . need 
for caution in things of intellect, . . . it is fatal pol- 
icy in things of conscience." There are some things we 
dare not attempt to compromise with. The only thing 
to do is . . . to leave them alone. As this same 
Book of Proverbs would say, 'Avoid them, pass not 
by them, turn from them, and pass away.' 

'No fuel, no fire!' 

But now, my friends, I wish to take our text, for a 
little while, in a positive way, not a negative way. "Where 
no wood is, the fire goeth out." Yes, but there are fires 
that are eminently useful and welcome, and which it 
would be a shame to let-go-out. 

There is, for example, the fire of righteous indignation : 
revolt of heart and mind against all that is base and 
debasing. And, there is the fire of ambition — pure and 
wholesome ambition. And, there is the fire of enthu- 
siasm — enthusiasm for the things that are worth while. 
And, there is the fire of love — true love. And, there is 
the fire of the Christ-touched purpose of making oneself 
useful in one's day. 

In short, there are various kinds of holy fires. They 
burn, for the most part, rather quietly; but intensely and 
through-and-through. Provided — they are properly 
fuelled: fuelled regularly, and methodically, and with the 
best kind of fuel — if it may be. 

What, then, are some of the right kinds of fuel to use, 
if we are to be on fire with the best interests and desires 
and enthusiasms — and on fire with the doing of things? 



194 The Imperishable Heart 

'No fuel, no fire.' 

There is, first of all, the Fuel of Intelligence. We 
must know about things. We must keep ourselves 
informed. As I have said so frequently, you can't ex- 
pect to be interested in things you know nothing about. 
If you wish to be a good musician, you must read-up 
music, and practice. If you wish to be a good teacher, 
you must keep adding to your own store of information 
and keep disciplining yourself in the points of good teaching. 
If you wish to be a good conversationalist, you must have 
something to say, and you must school yourself to talk 
well. If you wish to love tenderly and deeply and abid- 
ingly* y° u must (as the Scripture phrases it) 'keep your- 
selves in' the loving — by doing diligently and devotedly 
the things love prompts you to do : else, the fire will burn 
low, and love will cool, — and then goodbye happiness. If 
you wish to be of real service to your community, you 
must know your community and its needs and keep your- 
self in touch with people. Or, if you wish to be a live 
and active Church Worker, you must know something 
of what the Church of Christ has done in days gone by 
and is doing today. Here is part of a little paragraph I 
lighted upon a couple of days ago: it is entitled "Keep- 
ing up to date:" "In all lines of business today men 
read their trade journals. Doctors read their medical 
papers, lawyers the law journals, and preachers a great 
many things: every man reads something bearing on his 
line of work. Every Christian should be engaged in the 
business of the Kingdom of God, and it should be the 
primary duty of each one to be informed about the 
progress of events connected with this Kingdom. No 



No Fuel, No Fire 195 

one can escape this responsibility for intelligent interest 
and information." When, for instance, I read (as I did 
lately) that "the same notice boards" in several provinces 
of China, "which a few years ago held edicts proclaiming 
death to the "foreign devils," recently displayed posters 
advertising Mr. Eddy's evangelistic meetings" ; my inter- 
est in the propagation of the Gospel in the Far East is 
immensely quickened. Or when I read (as I did the 
other day) that the pastor of the German Mission in 
Hong Kong informed one of our missionaries in China 
that the first gift he received after the declaration of war 
was ten pounds sterling ($50.00) from an English mis- 
sionary in Hankow; then I am persuaded that there is 
something else — and something better — working in the 
world today than the war-fever and commercial cut- 
throatism and international jealousy, — even the Christian 
Spirit of Brotherhood, and my faith is refreshed in "the 
goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." Curi- 
ously enough, my friends, one of the items of information 
I have just given you is taken from a page in a very val- 
uable Missionary publication headed "Fuel for Mission- 
ary Fires." 

Then, there is the Fuel of the Word of God: the 
very best kind of fuel for keeping the fires of aspiration 
and of Christian purpose and of Christian love burning 
bright and sure, and with a steady glow. I am accus- 
tomed to say (and have I not both fact and right on my 
side?) that the best type of Christian is the Bible Chris- 
tian: the man who has got the soul of this Book into his 
own soul, and who is really trying to respond to its 
highest appeals and to live according to its highest stand- 



196 The Imperishable Heart 

ards. To be sure, our views of the inspiration of Scrip- 
ture are less mechanical (and. I trust, more rational) 
than the views of some previous generations of Christians. 
But we cannot get past the fact that this is still the most 
wonderful Book known to human kind., and the most in- 
spirational. To be sure also, we are agreed, with the 
New Testament that "the letter killeth. but the spirit 
giveth life," and that one may know one's Bible familiarly 
well and yet be a poor specimen of a Christian. Yes, 
but how can you hope to get at the "spirit" of this Book 
— or of any book, — if you are quite unfamiliar with the 
''letter" of it? 'No fuel, no fire.' 

And here is a pointer for my young friends in partic- 
ular. Miss Margaret Slattery, whose name most of you 
must know, and who is so deeply interested in the girl- 
life of this Country, tells of a girl of fourteen or fifteen 
years of age who was in the habit of reading a few chap- 
ters from some trashy, but exciting, novel even" night last 
thing before she retired to rest. The results were dis- 
astrous: she went off her sleep, and her health — both ma- 
terial and spiritual — was being sacrificed on the altar of 
questionable fiction. One day a girl friend of hers — a 
couple of years her senior — presented her with a little 
Scripture Calendar, with a selection of Scripture passages 
on each page — and a page for each day, and asked her if 
she would not read one of these pages each evening last 
thing before retiring to rest, — marking any passages that 
specially appealed to her. She did so. — read and marked, 
and became more and more interested in the great Book. 
The results were marvellous: retiring to rest each night 
with high and holy thoughts in her heart, she slept 



No Fuel, No Fire 197 

soundly and purely, and in a short time became a new 
creature — body and mind and soul. Now, my friends, I 
am human enough to understand that it is not essential 
that what that individual girl did we must all do in pre- 
cisely the same fashion; but the pith and point of Miss 
Slattery's narrative are obvious. O yes, our better na- 
tures are crying out for 'food convenient for them.' The 
purer fires within us are demanding the best kind of fuel. 

Then, there is the Fuel of Meditation: "While I was 
musing," says the XXXIXth Psalm, "while I was mus- 
ing (meditating), the fire burned." 

Now, you will find that the dictionary meaning of 
Meditation is given as 'deep thought,' 'serious contempla- 
tion,' or some such phrase. And it has been suggested 
by some that the word "meditate" is derived from the 
Latin 'medius' (meaning, middle or midst) : so that to 
"meditate" on a thing is just to get into the middle of 
it, to become absorbed in it, to go to the very heart of it. 

Ah, my friends, that is why so many people are not 
on fire about the things that are most worth while, are 
not on fire about the big projects. They are not meditating 
on them. They are not getting to the heart of them. 
They are only skimming across the surface. As if a man 
might expect a good yield from his garden by using the 
rake only on the surface, and not plough and spade and 
cultivator as well! Are you envying some individuals 
their success, or what is called their personal magnetism? 
And, are you putting it all down to luck? I tell you, 
No: nine cases out of ten, it is not luck that has done 
it, but hard work — deliberate abandon and absorption — 
concentration — getting to the heart of things and staying 



198 The Imperishable Heart 

there. A man in this Village was asked the other day 
how he had managed to make such a success of a certain 
venture. His answer was, "By giving my mind to it." 
I am not an expert housekeeper ; but I know that the only 
really thorough and satisfactory way of scrubbing a 
floor is to get down on your hands and knees to it. And, 

. . . "it is no use to wait for your ship to come in, 
unless you have sent one out." "Whatsoever thy hand 
findeth to do, do it with thy might." . . . 

And now, friends, there is but one other kind of Fuel 
I wish to speak of just now: a kind of Fuel, this time, 
which is good to use if we wish to help the other fellow 
to keep his fire burning well. I mean, Encouragement. 
The holy fires are burning pretty low in some folks' 
hearts — just for lack of that sort of fuel. Perhaps they 
haven't a great deal of it in their own cellars. Perhaps 
(I mean) they are constitutionally morbid and fearful 
and self-distrustful, and little inclined to be sanguine. 
Well, you know what such people need. Just a word of 
good cheer. Just a little heartening. 

Of course we cannot always be patting people on the 
back, and saying smooth things and flattering things. 
There are various ways of encouraging people (which 
means, literally, putting courage into them). It is told 
of Sir Colin Campbell — of Indian Mutiny fame — that, 
when he was but a lad and was in his first battle as an 
army ensign, the captain of the regiment took him by the 
sleeve and made him walk out with him right in front 
of the line between their own and the enemy's fire. The 
captain's object (as he explained later) was to knock fear 
out of the lad, and give him confidence; and Campbell, 



No Fuel, No Fire 199 

writing of the incident long years afterwards, said, "It 
was the greatest kindness that could have been shown me at 
that time." Yes, there are differences; and we must 
know something of human nature if we are to be judicious 
and effective Encouragers. But by all means let us 
be Encouragers: let us know how to help the other fel- 
low stoke his fire with that sort of Fuel. . . . And 
then, brethren, when we pass on, not only shall we leave 
behind us here an immortality of heartening influence: 
we shall also find that the world beyond is, as some one 
has said, a place "where God is grateful to all who have 
been kind to His children here." 



XX 

'THE GIFT WITHOUT THE GIVER IS BARE' 

"They . . . first gave their own selves to the Lord." — 
II Corinthians VIII, 5. 

k I *HIS Epistle, from which our text is taken, was from 
Paul to the Christians of Corinth — in Southern 
Greece. And in this chapter and the chapter following 
he is dealing particularly with the duty of Christian Giv- 
ing; or rather, as he calls it, the "grace" of Christian 
Giving. In doing so he cites to these Corinthians the 
praiseworthy example of the Christians of some of the 
cities of Macedonia — in Northern Greece. These North- 
erners, he says, had given liberally. Indeed, the manner 
of their giving had been beyond his expectations: the ex- 
planation being that, back of all their giving, prior to 
all their contributing, there had been the giving of them- 
selves. Their charity was out of consecration; their ser- 
vice out of self-surrender; their Gospel activity out of 
Gospel affection. "And this they did, not as we had 
hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and 
unto us by the will of God." 

Brethren, one of the best things the New Testament 
says of our Lord Jesus Christ is that HE "gave Him- 
self" for us. And surely, also, one of the best things 
that has ever been said of any group of people is that they 
"gave their own selves" to the King of Love and to the 
work of His Kingdom. 

200 



"The Gift Without the Giver is Bare" 201 

I don't know how it is, but these phrases — and the 
thought at the heart of them — have been much in my 
mind for some time past. They have been, I may almost 
say, haunting me. Partly, I suppose, because one finds 
so little of this Self-Giving in the Church of Christ. And 
partly also because one is bound to feel that, if men and 
women will 'give themselves' to the Saviour and His ser- 
vice, everything else will follow: a multitude of doubts 
and difficulties will disappear, the questionable habits will 
go, the whole area of life will take on a new lustre and 
a new sanctity, and Church attendance and Church sup- 
port and the carrying on of the world's benevolences will 
go on apace — without there being any need of occasional 
volcanic efforts. 

"They . . . first gave their own selves." Not 
simply, mark you, They gave their attention, gave their 
time, gave their toil, gave their money: but GAVE 
THEMSELVES. 

And there is no use talking, — in every realm of life it 
is those who 'give themselves' who do best, who are at 
once most successful and most influential: those who 
'lose themselves' (to use one of our Lord's most fruitful 
phrases) — those who 'lose themselves' in their appointed 
work, or in their friendships, or in their love, or in their 
studies, or in their Church activities. 

One is bound to see that the great Benefactors of Hu- 
manity have been the men and women who have 'first 
given their own selves.' That, as I have already hinted, 
was the supreme and the unique distinction of CHRIST. 
Not simply that He was the purest and kindest and wisest 



202 The Imperishable Heart 

soul who has ever lived. Nor yet simply that He was 
an incomparable Teacher and an astounding Wonder- 
worker. Nor yet simply that He came down from the 
purity and dignity of God's nearer presence, and "made 
Himself of no reputation." No, nor yet simply that He 
poured out His life-blood. But that He "poured out His 
soul unto death" — "gave HIMSELF" — His very heart 
— His whole being. Just compare, for a moment, Jesus 
of Nazareth and, say, Napoleon. Napoleon was, in many 
respects, a transcendently great man: able, masterful, 
large-brained, large-visioned, and — in great measure — a 
sweeping conqueror. But in the end he was a failure! 
Why? Because, I have always felt, he never 'gave him- 
self even to his own ambitious projects, let alone any 
really good work. He gave everything else — brains and 
time and energy 7 (doing with as little sleep as it is pos- 
sible for any human to do with) — he gave everything else 
except himself. The consequence has been, that, not- 
withstanding the immense ability of that man, and his 
untiring industry, and his occasional outbursts of benevo- 
lence on a grand scale, he has not touched our hearts; 
and to the end of time the Christ will be immensely pre- 
ferred by Humanity to the Corsican. 

And of all the real "helpers and friends of mankind" it 
may truly be said that they "first gave their own selves," — 
surrendered themselves, consecrated themselves, gave their 
hearts to their "work of faith and labor of love." One 
has only to name one or two, to be convinced of that. 
St. Francis, for example; or William Tyndale, to whom 
— humanly speaking — we owe the English Bible ; or Wil- 
liam Carey; or David Livingstone; or John Bright; or 



"The Gift Without the Giver is Bare" 203 

Abraham Lincoln. And a whole host of men and women 
of our own time: like David Lloyd George, of England; 
or John R. Mott, of this Country ; or Miss Grace Dodge 
who died the other day, — chairman of the National Board 
of the Young Women's Christian Association and the first 
woman to serve on the Board of Education of New York 
City, — of whom it has been said that she gave "regally 
of her money where first she had given herself." 

That is one reason, too, I believe, why a soldier ready 
for battle appeals to us so strongly. Say what we will 
about the iniquity and stupidity of war, not one of us 
but is moved by the sight of a regiment of soldiers armed 
from top to toe, starting off for the war zone. Why? 
Because these men are 'giving themselves.' They are not 
counting their own lives dear unto themselves. They 
are going to "lay down their own necks" if need be, for 
Cause or Country. 

And if I mistake not, brethren, it is that also which 
explains why most of us have such a warm side to our 
Mothers. Because they have 'given themselves' for us — 
body and soul. Yes, I say, body and soul. For you 
know that the best kind of mother will sacrifice anything 
and everything for the sake of her children: her health, 
her time, her social pleasures and her social prestige, and 
her very reputation. 

We often hear of the large part which the Personal 
Equation plays in human intercourse and human achieve- 
ment. And, indeed, it is wonderful — the added touch 
of Individuality — the added touch of Life. The pres- 
ence or absence of that touch makes all the difference in 
the world. A man may give all sorts of things and all 



204 The Imperishable Heart 

sorts of large amounts of money — for the very best of 
causes; but somehow, if his heart is not going with his 
gifts, his giving does not appeal to us. He is only giving 
of his "abundance" (or "superfluity"), as Jesus phrased 
it. Isn't that just what St. Paul meant when he said, 
in the wonderful Xlllth Chapter of his First Letter 
to these same Corinthians, "Though I bestow all my goods 
to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be 
burned, and have not Love, it profiteth me nothing." 
'Feeding the poor' is a splendid thing; and fleshy self- 
denial — or even self-inflicted pain to subdue the fleshly 
appetites — may be an excellent thing. But better far is 
it to so love the poor that all the other points of charity 
will follow as a matter of course, and to be so enthusias- 
tic for cleanness and efficiency of life that no unworthy 
indulgence will ever have as much as a place in our 
thoughts. For, as Russell Lowell has it in his immortal 
line, 

"The gift without the giver is bare." 

You remember the exquisite Old Testament story of 
Ruth — in the little Book of that name. Here is a short 
passage from it: "And Naomi said, Turn again, my 
daughters: why will ye go with me? . . . And they 
lifted up their voice, and wept . . . : and Orpah 
kissed her mother-in-law; but Ruth clave unto her. . 

. . And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or 
to return from following after thee: for whither thou 
goest, I will go: and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: 
thy people shall be my people, and thy God, my God: 
where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: 
the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death 



"The Gift Without the Giver is Bare" 205 

part thee and me. ... So Naomi returned, and Ruth 
. . . with her." She had 'first given her own self — 
that sweet girl of Moab. 

And so, now, my friends, I have one or two practical 
things to say: and I shall say them as simply and directly 
as possible. 

First, I would say, GIVE YOURSELF to Christ. 
As Frances Havergal's hymn has it, 

"Thy life was given for me; 
What have I given for Thee? 

Thou gav'st Thyself for me; 
I give myself to Thee." 
Remember, it is no more intellectual assent to certain 
propositions about Christ that is going to save us, that is 
going to lift us up where we ought to be and bring us 
to our best. Neither is it our formal adherence to the 
Christian Society that is going to emancipate us, that is 
going to free us from our littlenesses and our basenesses and 
make us strong and glad in the service of the Highest. 
Neither will a mere negative goodness do, — giving up this 
and giving up that and keeping ourselves immaculate be- 
cause the precepts of Christ seem to require it. O no, liv- 
ing in Christ and with Christ and for Christ means far 
more than any or all of these things. It means "not the 
mere being good," but "the definite surrender of oneself 
and one's life at any cost." It means 'losing' oneself to 
Christ. No half-measures will do. No middle course is 
either sufficient or satisfying. . . . You know, you 
may get all sorts of rules for learning to swim ; but the one 



206 The Imperishable Heart 

unfailing rule — beside which the others are little needed 
— (the one unfailing rule) is, Trust yourself to the wa- 
ter and strike out quietly and surely. 

O my friends — my young friends especially, — do you 
know what it means — 'giving yourself to Christ. It is, 
indeed, just one of those things which cannot easily be 
told in human words. But I think I know what it 
means: and I know that it is all confusion and failure 
and mediocrity — until a fellow has brought himself to say 
to the Christ, with all his heart, 

"Take myself, and I will be 
Ever, only, all for Thee." 

Then I would say, also, GIVE YOURSELF to your 
Friends. So long as love calculates and prevaricates, it 
is in a perilous state. And if we are not going to "be 
ourselves" to our friends, our friendships will soon wither 
and die. The Book here says, you remember, "A man 
that hath friends must show himself friendly." And a 
more modern writer has it on this wise: that no one is 
worthy to have friends who will not be a friend. And 
yet another says, "A true friend unbosoms freely." You 
know what a two-faced person is: and to be two-faced 
with a friend — with one who really loves you and is 
planning for your good — is simply frightful. Well, the 
sure way to avoid anything approaching two-facedness is 
to 'give yourself — to keep nothing back. 

And, mark you, brethren, we have sundry Friends be- 
sides those in human form. Nature — God's out-of- 
doors — is our Friend, if we will have it so. Good Books 
are our Friends: as Stevenson says, "When you have 
read, ... it is as though you had touched a loyal 



"The Gift Without the Giver is Bare" 207 

hand, looked into brave eyes, and made a noble friend." 
Music is one of man's best Friends. And your whole- 
some recreations are good Friends to you. . . . What 
.hen? GIVE YOURSELVES to these things. Don't 
deal with them casually and superficially. Become im- 
mersed in them, so as to extract all the blessing and all 
the inspiration of them. 

And so I would say, next, GIVE YOURSELF to 
your Work. Whatever it be, become absorbed in it. Put 
yourself into it, — your very best, all that you know. Let 
it be Consecrated Concentration, and Concentrated Con- 
secration. 

Here is something to the point, which I came across the 
other day (it is from a recent issue of The Missionary 
Review of the World). Many years ago, in an old 
French Church in Berne, a great choir under the 
famous old leader, Father Reichel, was having its 
final rehearsal for the production of the Mes- 
siah. The chorus had triumphantly sung through 
to the place where the soprano solo takes up 
the refrain, "I know that my Redeemer liveth." The 
singer was a beautiful woman, whose voice had been fault- 
lessly trained. As the tones came out high and clear, the 
listeners were filled with wonder at her perfect technique. 
Her breathing was faultless; her note-placing perfect; 
her enunciation beyond criticism. After the final note 
there was a pause, and all eyes were turned toward the old 
conductor to catch his look of approval. Great was the 
surprise, however, when a sharp tap of the baton was 
heard, as a command for the orchestra to pause, and with 
a look of sorrow Father Reichel said to the singer: "My 



208 The Imperishable Heart 

daughter, you do not really know that your Redeemer 
liveth, do you?" With a flushed face she replied: "Why 
yes, I think I do." "Then sing it," he cried, "Sing it 
from your heart. Tell it to me so that I and all who 
hear you will know, and know that you know the joy and 
power of it." Then with an imperious gesture he mo- 
tioned for the orchestra to go over it again. This time 
the young woman sang with no thought of herself or of 
technique or applause from her hearers. She sang the 
truth that she knew in her heart and experienced in her 
life, and that she wished to send home to the hearts of 
the listeners. As the last notes died away there was no 
wonder at the craftsman's work, but there were quick- 
ened hearts that had been moved by the glorious message 
they had received. And as the singer stood forgetful of 
applause, the old master stepped up and with tears in his 
eyes kissed her on her forehead and said: "You do know, 
for you have told me" ! 

But, you may say, that was artistic work — fine work — 
the kind of work that is calculated, if any kind of work 
is, to draw out one's best. Well, friends, did I not 
read, also just the other day, of a laborer who was dig- 
ging away as hard as he could in a dirty swampy piece 
of ground — and singing the while he was digging. A 
passer-by asked him how he could contrive to sing at 
such grimy work as that: when he replied, "Isn't it my 
daily work that keeps the light in my mother s face?" 
Just so, my friends, you will never do anything that 
is worth while in a way that is worth while, unless you 
put yourself into it, unless you are willing to make sac- 
rifices all along the line, unless you make up your mind 



"The Gift Without the Giver is Bare" 209 

that in every detail the thing demands your very best. 
As Newman has said, "We are most ourselves when we 
lose sight of ourselves. . . . When we surrender 
ourselves we are victors." A chief reason why there is 
so much miserable mediocrity in the world is just that so 
many people are not 'first giving their own selves' to 
their appointed lifework: and I know mighty well what 
I am talking about. 

There are two passages in the Book of Nehemiah that 
always occur to my mind in connection with this subject. 
The first is this: "But their nobles put not their necks 
to the work of the Lord." And the second is this: 
"And all the wall was joined together. . . . : for 
the people had a mind to work." . . . 

And, brethren, if I have said, Give Yourself to your 
Work; shall I not say, of the Work of the Kingdom 
in particular, GIVE YOURSELF to that work. Not 
just your occasional attendance — or, if it be so, your reg- 
ular attendance — at the Church Services, and your pledged 
contributions and so forth : but YOURSELF, — your best 
energies and your best powers of mind and heart. A 
'shirker' is a hopeless monstrosity in the Church of the 
Living Redeemer: while, let me tell you, those who are 
giving themselves to the study and the service of the 
Church of Christ (and I am not talking, meantime, of the 
ministers) — those who are putting heart and mind and 
substance into it "con amore" — are, far and away, the 
wholesomest and happiest people I know. 

There, then was the secret of the contagious labors and 
the contagious liberality of a group of first-century Chris- 
tians: "They . . . first gave their own selves to 
the Lord." And the secret is precisely the same today. 



XXI 

'FAITH DIVERSIFIED BY DOUBT' 

"Lord, I believe: help Thou mine unbelief." — Mark IX, 
24. 

\X^E have seen, from our New Testament reading this 
morning, by whom and in what circumstances these 
words were first spoken. It seems to me, however, that 
they are not by any means out of date, and that they suit 
every single one of us. In some degree we all "believe" 
— we all have faith. But our belief is more or less flecked 
with unbelief. We are living — most of us, anyhow, are 
living — what Browning calls a life "of faith diversified 
by doubt." Our faith is not by any means complete and 
perfect. "Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief." 

You remember how the Apostles' Creed puts "I be- 
lieve in the forgiveness of sins" after "I believe in the 
communion of saints." After, not before: as if to imply 
that those who may fairly claim to belong to the Com- 
munion of Saints are liable to fall into sin, and so to need 
forgiveness. That is true to experience. And similarly 
those who can honestly say, "I believe: I believe in God, 
I believe in Jesus Christ, I believe in the Spiritual World, 
I believe in the worth of the human soul, I believe in the 
best" — those who can honestly say, "I believe" are not 
exempt from the suggestions and the subtleties and the 
depressions and the ensnarements of unbelief. The life 
of Faith is not all plain sailing. There are occasional 
210 



"Faith Diversified by Doubt" 21 1 

storms. There are treacherous currents. There are hid- 
den rocks. And St. Paul speaks in one place, you remem- 
ber, of those who ' 'concerning faith have made ship- 
wreck." 

Now, friends, once for all will you understand that I 
am not speaking specifically this morning of our docu- 
mentary Faith, of those stereotyped statements of Chris- 
tian belief which we find in our creeds and catechisms. I 
will yield to no man in respect for these documents, and 
in admiration of some of them. What I have in mind, 
however, this morning is the working Faith — the every- 
day faith — of the average man ; or, perhaps I should say, 
of the average Christian. Not the Faith which is an 
intellectual assent to a series of propositions; but the 
Faith which is "a sentiment, for it is a hope; . . . 
an instinct, for it precedes all outward instruction." The 
Faith which, as I have already hinted, we all have and 
hold-to, however feebly and faultily at times. 

Yes, we all have it — less or more. Indeed, we all must 
have it, less or more. We can't get along without it. 
"Without faith," it has been said, "a man can do noth- 
ing. . . . The need of faith never leaves us." Ay, 
"the need of faith" never leaves us: but sometimes the 
thing itself is like to leave us, and we are moved to say, 
"Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief." 

And, my friends, will you not agree with me that, in 
these very days of ours, men and women are becoming 
more and more persuaded of "the need of faith :" nay 
more, that they are actually believing more, and believ- 
ing more earnestly and more cordially — believing in the 



212 The Imperishable Heart 

best things — believing in the spiritual valuation of life? 
We want to believe — these days. We want to have 
Faith: "the reasonable faith of resolute and open-eyed 
men;" the sort of Faith -which will "remove mountains" 
of difficulty, which will see good back of all evil, and 
which will make each new day a day of spiritual achieve- 
ment and a day of joy. 

There are many signs that it is so. There are many 
indications that men, today, are very serious in 'feeling 
after God;' that they are looking very earnestly at "the 
things which are not seen" — but eternal; that they are 
taking a spiritual view of life. In so much that some one 
has said, quite recently, "the spiritual tide is rising." 

Some years ago Dr. Henry Van Dyke issued a little 
book called "The Gospel for an Age of Doubt." Well, 
it has been suggested (and wisely, too, I think) that the 
book for today would be "The Gospel for an Age of De- 
sire." Precisely so. Men, it is true, are not done with 
their doubts ; and never will be on this side of time. But 
today, it seems, they are desiring more and more to have 
their doubts disciplined, and desiring — if it may be — to 
increase and abound in faith. Indeed many of us are 
coming to feel the truth of what Phillips Brooks once 
said, — that "to believe much, and not to believe little, is 
the privilege and glory of a full-grown man." And so 
we keep saying, "Lord, I believe; help Thou mine un- 
belief." 

Then, is it not the fact that the leading philosophers 
of today are overwhelmingly spiritual in the trend of their 
thinking: such men as Eucken and Bergson, and Royce 
and Bosanquet? Not to speak of the writers of the edi- 



"Faith Diversified by Doubt" 213 

torials and the other principal articles in our best peri- 
odicals. Yes, the spiritual note — the note of Faith — is 
sounding strong these days. No doubt about it. We 
have had, it is true, Nietzsche and Bernhardi on the 
Continent of Europe, — with their crass materialism and 
their gospel of brute force. But the naked outcome of 
that is plain enough over yonder, and our hearts are up 
in revolt at that whole damnable philosophy of life. Yes, 
suppose you open, tomorrow, any recent book of conse- 
quence, or any magazine of good repute, or almost any 
decent newspaper; you will find, almost for certain, a 
striking of the spiritual note and an atmosphere of holy 
human desire. 

Then, again, it is a notorious fact that the Science 
of today is far less materialistic than it was, say, quarter of 
a century ago — or even less. "It is simply an impertin- 
ence," said an eminent British geologist lately, "(it is 
simply an impertinence) to say that the leading scientists 
are irreligious or anti-Christian. Such a statement could 
only be made by some scatterbrained chatterbox or zeal- 
ous fanatic." Indeed, brethren, it seems to me that some 
of the scientists of today are becoming almost alarmingly 
spiritual; in other words, highly spiritualistic. Anyhow 
the fact remains that our men of science have largely 
ceased to construe life exclusively in materialistic terms, 
and are allowing for the reality of the Spiritual World 
and the reasonableness and the right of Faith. 

Then, I have referred to the European war at present 
raging. Any evidence there — do you ask — of the 'rising 
of the spiritual tide?' O yes, certainly. For I am per- 
suaded, to begin with, that the vast majority of the 



214 The Imperishable Heart 

people of these belligerent Powers feel that the whole 
thing is diabolically wicked, is entirely out of harmony 
with the ideals of the twentieth century, is an insult to 
the present-day Faith of Civilized Humanity. . . . 
And what are we thinking and saying about it all, over 
here ? Are we not being aroused to a new enthusiasm for 
righteousness, to a new preference for the Spirit of Christ 
and the principles of the Christian Gospel? And, are 
we not being moved to a great heart-searching — moved to 
say within ourselves, "Yes, we believe: but, in practice af- 
ter all, we have been giving too large a place to our un- 
belief — to our doubts and to our cynicism and to our 
materalism: we have been, in short, largely living as 
if we did not believe. We must be more worthy 
of our heritage of faith. We must be more worthy of 
our best convictions. 'Lord, we believe; help Thou our 
unbelief?' " 

O yes, my friends, we all know well enough that it 
is the men and women of Faith that we are ready to pin 
our faith to: those who "dream dreams" of things worth 
while and "see visions" of good overcoming evil: those 
who believe in God and in Humanity, and who "love our 
Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity" and are prepared to try 
His way at all hazards. Yes, I say, these are the men 
and women whom in our heart of hearts we respect and 
admire, and whose very Faith we "covet earnestly." . . . 

How then (let us now ask) — how then are we to cut 
out, more and more, our faithlessness, and to ensure that 
our Faith be 'increased?' "Lord, I believe; help Thou 
mine unbelief." 



"Faith Diversified by Doubt" 215 

I 

First of all, I would say, Dont be discouraged. 

In most of us there is a considerable mixture of belief 
and unbelief. That is no crime; albeit unfortunate and 
damaging. 

Consequently the Word of God here is wonderfully 
considerate in this matter. The case of this man in the 
Gospels, for instance, is verily for our sake. You know 
how Christ dealt with him. He granted his request. He 
gave him his desire. And, presumably, He did 'help 
his unbelief ; the man having been frank enough to ac- 
knowledge his limitations. 

There you are, then. You need not pretend to a faith 
which you do not possess. Be quite frank in the mat- 
ter. Go on with what faith you have, and the "in- 
crease" will come. Our Father in heaven does not de- 
mand of us a full and perfect faith: He asks just so 
much faith as will draw us to Him to help out what we 
have, — "Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief." 



II 



Next, I would say, We shall do well to put ourselves 
in the way of acquiring a fuller and firmer and finer 
Faith. As St. Paul says, "Faith cometh by hearing." 

It has been remarked, indeed, that "faith is the herit- 
age of the individual at birth ; . . . it is an instinct." 
Yes, there is a certain proportion of faith born in us, just 
as there is a certain proportion of intelligence born in us. 
But it requires to be cultivated, just as the other requires 



2l6 The Imperishable Heart 

to be cultivated. We can't expect it to grow and to 
prosper by magic, any more than we can expect either the 
physique or the intellect of a child to grow without the 
proper care — without nourishment (material and mental). 

What then? Let us put ourselves in the way of what 
will help our Faith, not hinder it. There are the right 
sort of books to read and the right sort of men and women 
to make companions of. Above all, there are the inter- 
pretation-of-life and the-vision-of-human-uplift and the- 
truth-of-the-Universal-Fatherhood-of-God which Jesus has 
given us, and which, if we hold to them, will make our 
Faith rich and warm. 

If you wish to get from here to New York City, you do 
not make for Chicago. Even so, when you pray, "Lord, 

. . . help Thou mine unbelief," you must make the 
prayer intelligently and purposefully, and set your face in 
the right direction. Or, to quote St. Paul again, "What- 
soever things are true, whatsoever things are honorable, 
whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, 

. . . lovely, ... of good report; if there be 
any virtue, and if there be any praise; think on these 
things." 

"I being in the way, the Lord led me." 
"They shall ask the way to Zion, with their faces thither- 
ward." 

Ill 

Next, I would say, Be wise enough and wary enough 
to keep in mind that Faith is not always an easy thing to 
hold. 

Doesn't the Book here speak of "the . . . fight of 



"Faith Diversified by Doubt" 21 7 

faith," and "the trial of . . . faith," and so on? 

O yes, "there are many adversaries." There are all 
sorts of things that seem to say "No" to our deepest con- 
victions and our best beliefs and our holiest hopes. 

To say the least of it, we need to be on our guard. 
And sometimes we need to strike at the "adversaries," — 
to strike at the cynicism and the sensualism which are sub- 
versive of all faith. 

Consequently we read here about "putting on the breast- 
plate of Faith," and "taking the shield of Faith, . . 

. and the sword of the Spirit." And, writing to one 
of the Churches, St. Paul commends his readers for 'the 
steadfastness of their Faith.' 

Yes, we've got to "keep a goin'." About sixty years 
ago Henry Rogers published his "Eclipse of Faith:" a 
most suggestive and helpful book in its time, — and it 
would be so were it read today. Anyhow the title of the 
book is significant— "The Eclipse of Faith." For, verily, 
our best beliefs are 'sometimes eclipsed — darkened out of 
all recognition: our belief in God, our belief in Human 
Nature, our belief in the ultimate triumph of truth and 
goodness. But we have seen eclipses of the moon; and 
we know that the moon emerges from her eclipse — how? 
By preserving her proper motion — by keeping a-going. 
Which thing is an allegory, and suits our case. 



IV 



And so I would say, next, Don't forget that Faith 
requires exercise. 

"Faith without works is dead," says St. James, you 



2l8 The Imperishable Heart 

remember. And we read, also, here, of "the work of 
Faith with power," of "the obedience of Faith," of "the 
sacrifice and service of . . . Faith;" and so forth. 

It is said that sailors, by using their eyes to sight land 
or to sight other vessels at sea or to sight dangers ahead, 
acquire unusual keenness of sight. Even so, the eye of 
faith is strengthened by exercise. "The life which I now 
live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God." 

There you have it. Live in the inspiration of your best 
beliefs. Do your daily work, converse with your fellow- 
men, live your home-life, deal with your children, deal 
with everybody in the inspiration of your best beliefs. 
And, not least important, take active part in the "work 
of faith" which the Church of Christ and its allied insti- 
tutions are essaying to do. And, as sure as the sunrise, 
your doubts and misgivings will become fewer, your de- 
pressions will mostly disappear, and you will begin to 
"abound in Faith." 

Yes, the best cure for unbelief is action. Work for 
the best, and you will believe in the best. 



Never forgetting, in all your wholesome Christian ac- 
tivities, (never forgetting) that "Faith . . . work- 
eth by love." 

O yes, it is Love that "beareth all things, believeth all 
things, hopeth all things." 

So long as we think and live within our own narrow 
spheres, so long as we keep ourselves closely and selfishly 
to ourselves, our best beliefs have a poor chance: they are 



"Faith Diversified by Doubt** 219 

apt, so, to shrivel up and die. But once we catch the 
contagion of the Spirit of Christ, once we learn to go 
out of ourselves and to 'spend and be spent' in trying 
to make this world purer and brighter and kindlier, our 
faith becomes emancipated and refreshed and we are on 
the way to have "joy and peace in believing." 

Yes, after all has been said, Love is the master-key to 
the situation. For "Love never faileth." 
These two, then, are companion prayers: — 
Lord, make us "to increase and abound in love one 
toward another, and toward all men;" and, Lord, "in- 
crease our faith." 



XXII 

ABIDING WEALTH 

" . . . rich toward God." — Luke XII, 21. 

4tT? ICH toward God!" That is to say, rich in God's 
estimate — rich according to His way of account- 
ing — rich in the things that are worth while and abiding 
and God-approved. 

Yes, that is to be wealthy indeed, — rich in those things 
which "neither moth nor rust doth corrupt" and which 
"thieves" may not "steal." 

The truth is, brethren, our ideas of wealth are almost 
wholly materialistic. We count a man rich, who is a 
moneyed man, or who has real estate or some other kind 
of this world's gear in great plenty. But the New Tes- 
tament has wonderfully little to say about that sort of 
wealth; except, for the most part, to pity it and to point 
out its dangers. It is a different conception of wealth al- 
together that you get here. "I know thy . . . pov- 
erty," says the message in the Book of Revelation to the 
Church in Smyrna — a much persecuted Church and far 
from being a wealthy Church — , "I know thy works, and 
tribulation, and poverty; (but thou art rich)," adds the 
Voice in an arresting and illuminating parenthesis. "But 
thou art rich!" What did that mean? Why, it meant — 
surely — that (spite of their "tribulation and poverty") 
those people were "rich toward God:" that they were 
aboundingly devout and courageous and loyal-to-truth- 
220 



Abiding Wealth 22 1 

and-duty and ready to be "faithful unto death." "Ye 
know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ," writes St. 
Paul, you remember, "(ye know the grace of our Lord 
Jesus Christ), that, though He was rich, yet for your 
sakes He became poor." Ay, but it is implied all through, 
and it is the simple fact, that the Christ was never richer 
than when He 'laid down His life,' — was never richer in 
compassion and in influence and in tokens of the Father's 
approval : 

"Did e'er such love and sorrow meet, 
Or thorns compose so rich a crown I" 
So that in His case the old prophetic word had a remark- 
able kind of fulfilment, "And He made His grave . 

. . with the rich in His death." 

There are quite a few things that money cannot buy. 
There are three things, in particular, that money cannot 
buy: health, brains, and salvation. No doubt a large 
bank account may enable a man to procure the very best 
medical service or to make his way to the very finest 
of climates, — and so forth : but, after all has been said, you 
cannot buy health. No doubt, also, the moneyed man may 
buy books and may take advantage of educational oppor- 
tunities which are closed to those of limited means, and 
so forth: but, after all has been said, you cannot buy 
brains, and, in point of fact, some of the world's greatest 
thinkers and greatest writers and greatest artists and 
greatest statesmen have been poor — or next door to it. 
And, as for buying salvation — as for purchasing emanci- 
pation of soul and purity of heart and largeness of mind 
and rectitude and usefulness of life, and a safe convoy to 
the Better Country, that is entirely out of the question: 



222 The Imperishable Heart 

"for by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not 
of yourselves : ft is the gift of God : not of works, lest any 
man should boast." 

Then — thank God — there are some things that lack- 
of-money cannot deprive us of: some mind-and-heart 
riches of which poverty cannot bankrupt us. 

"He'll hae misfortunes great an' sma', " 
said Robert Burns of himself — as if prophetically, 
"He'll hae misfortunes great an' sma,' 
"But ay a heart aboon them a'." 
Yes, that is one kind of wealth that the very poorest of the 
poor may possess, and may possess securely and abidingly: 
the "unconquerable soul" — a heart of good cheer. 

"Our greatest yet with least pretence, . . . 
"Rich in saving common-sense," 
wrote Tennyson of the Duke of Wellington. That is 
another kind of wealth that may consort with scanty 
means: common-sense. To have it is to be able to live 
richly: not to have it is to be mighty poor. 

Then, to be sure, you do not require to be passing 
rich in order to breathe God's fresh air, or in order to 
enjoy the smell of the newly-turned earth in Spring, or 
in order to reciprocate the sparkling courtesy of the stars. 
"My neighbor may have abundance of riches; but he is 
no nearer the stars than I am." And, I have one or two 
friends and one or two accomplishments which, I fully 
think, I would not exchange for all the money in the Em- 
pire State. "Wherefore do ye spend money . . . 
and your labour for that which satisfleth not?" 

Truly, my friends, in the enjoyment of life's best gifts 
"the rich and poor meet together: the Lord is the maker 



Abiding Wealth 223 

of them all." 

Suppose we ask, now, a little more in detail just what 
it is to be "rich toward God?" And for a little chain of 
answers to that question — both the suggestions and the 
phrasing of them — let us keep to the Bible: we can't 
do better. 

First of all, then, you read in the Epistle of James as 
follows, "Hath not God chosen the poor of this world 
rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom. ... ?" 

"Rich in Faith!" That, in good sooth, is to dwell in 
"a wealthy place." To be incredulous, to be sceptical, to 
be without the vision and verve and vigor of Faith is to be 
a very poor sort of human. It is to be mentally and 
spiritually bankrupt; and, in respect of enterprise, re- 
sourceless. But, on the other hand, to believe in God, — 
that HE is before all things and back of all things, All- 
powerful and All-wise and All-loving; to believe in Jesus 
Christ, — in His way of thinking and living and in the 
persuasions of His Spirit and the power and promise of 
His grace; to believe in ourselves as the children of God 
and the 'captains of our souls;' to believe in "the other 
fellow" as a fellow to be encouraged and befriended ; and 
to believe in "the ultimate decency of things," and that 
"There was never winter 
But brought the spring;" — 
why, that is to live a full, rich life. Yes truly, my 
friends, it is faith, not finances, that enables us to live 
both restfully and royally. You remember how the rich 
young ruler "went away sorrowful" from Jesus and His 



224 The Imperishable Heart 

tender invitation, — how he "went away sorrowful ; for he 
had great possessions." It was his very "possessions" that 
stood in the way of his peace and made him a poor man. 

And, my friends, let me tell you this: no matter how 
materially prosperous a whole People may be — as the 
People of this Country are prospering today — , if they 
are not "rich in faith" their prosperity will be but a snare 
to them. It will mean pride, and pleasure running riot, 
and probably also war-fever. And, "where there is no 
vision, the people perish." I like especially these two 
lines from our national hymn: 

"Long may our land be bright 
"With freedom's holy light." 
Not 'freedom's hilarious glitter;' but "freedom's holy 
light!" 

Next, doesn't St. Paul speak of God being "rich in 
mercy"? Another most enviable — another imperishable 
— type of wealth! But not necessarily confined to the 
Father Himself: for the Master says, "Be ye therefore 
merciful, as your Father also is merciful." 

"Rich in Mercy:" in thoughtfulness, in compassion, in 
kindness, in forbearance; rich in the gifts of encourage- 
ment and good cheer. What winsome wealth ! — 
"It is twice blest; 
"It blesseth him that gives and him that takes." 

No doubt about the 'richness' of God's Mercy: but 
what of ours, my friends? Let me commend to you a great 
passage from one of Emerson's great Essays (his Essay on 
"Manners") : "What is rich?" he asks, "Are you rich 
enough to help anybody? to succour the unfashionable and 



Abiding Wealth 225 

the eccentric? rich enough to make . . . the itiner- 
ant with his consul's paper which commends him "To the 
charitable," the swarthy Italian with his few broken 
words of English, the lame pauper hunted by overseers 
from town to town, even the poor insane or besotted 
wreck of man or woman, feel the noble exceptions of 
your presence and your house, from the general bleakness 
and stoniness; to make such feel that they were greeted 
with a voice which made them both remember and hope? 
. . . Without the rich heart, wealth is an ugly beg- 
gar." . . . "Are you rich enough to help anybody?" 
and, "the rich heart!" Can you beat that? Rich in 
money is nothing compared with being "rich in Mercy." 

Next, do we not read, in the Book of Proverbs, "He 
becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the 
hand of the diligent maketh rich?" Another type of God- 
approved wealth, — Diligence. 

That a man is well-off does not necessarily imply either 
that he has been a niggard or that he has been a knave. 
In many cases — perhaps in the vast majority of cases — it 
just implies that he has been diligent, "not slothful in 
business." We are sometimes amazed at the large sums 
of money which some individuals can command for a single 
evening's work: the great musicians, for instance, like 
Paderewski and Caruso, and even Harry Lauder with 
his contagious nonsense, and others. Yes, but our amaze- 
ment would be somewhat lessened, if we only knew the 
amount of hard work which such individuals have put in. 
And mark you this, the things that seem to come most 
spontaneously and most easily from the great artists are, 



226 The Imperishable Heart 

not seldom, the very things that have cost the most thought 
and the most toil. 

My friends — my young friends especially — , if you 
wish to work your way to wealth (and there will be no 
dishonor in that, provided you are minded to acquire your 
wealth fairly and to use it Christianly) — if you wish to 
work your way to wealth, be sure of this: that Diligence 
is essential, that you will have to get down to business and 
stay there. Remember that, as some one has said, "the 
world is looking for the man who can do something; not 
for the man who can 'explain' why he didn't do it:" also 
that "it's no use to wait for our ship to come in unless we 
have sent one out." 

But, brethren, with material wealth as the outcome of it 
or otherwise, the "diligent" life is the "rich" life — "rich 
toward God." For, do you know what the word "dili- 
gence" literally means? It means something more and 
better than just plodding along at your work as a matter 
of stark obligation. The word comes from a Latin word 
meaning 'to choose.' So that to be "diligent" means tak- 
ing to your appointed tasks as if they were matters 
of choice — 'labors of love:' and so, putting your whole 
soul into them, putting your best into them. That will 
make your life rich, — no matter how little you actually 
earn. "The hand of the diligent maketh rich." 

Next, doesn't St. Paul write, in his First Epistle to 
Timothy, "Charge them that are rich in this world, . 

. . that they do good, that they be rich in good works, 
ready to distribute, willing to communicate?" "Rich in 
Good Works!" Another fine type of wealth. 



Abiding Wealth 227 

"Ready to distribute, willing to communicate." Yes, 
we may say that "a man is rich in proportion to the num- 
ber of things he can let alone" — the number of things he 
can give away and do without. Paderewski, the great 
pianist, had, until quite recently, ample means. He had 
a house in Paris, a chateau in Switzerland, and sundry 
"expensive habits and hobbies." But he has been so 
touched by the sufferings of his countrymen in Poland, 
that he has parted with practically his whole fortune in 
their behalf, and is now about to go on tour again to 
'make a living' (as he himself has phrased it). Well, I 
will say that Paderewski was never a "richer" man than 
he is today — with his big fortune renounced for love's 
sake and for his home-land's sake. Sir Walter Scott, the 
wizard of the pen, was never a "richer" man than the 
day he was financially ruined : for he straightway "march- 
ed breast forward" and proceeded to do the greatest work 
of his life. 

Brethren, if we will worship Wealth, let it be the 
Wealth that counts with God, — wealth of courage, wealth 
of self-renunciation. And, if we will be "rich," let it be 
"rich in good works." 

Then, again, there is a very remarkable kind of Rich- 
ness "toward God" of which the New Testament speaks: 
where it says, "as poor, yet making many rich." The 
wealth of Enriching Service. 

And by that, my friends, I mean not simply, as I have 
been saying already this morning, giving of our substance 
to help ; but giving ourselves— our whole soul's influence 
—so as, if it may be, to enrich other people's souls, to 



228 The Imperishable Heart 

give them a new hold of God and new heart of grace 
through the friendship of Christ and a new outlook upon 
life. Some one has said that there are individuals who, 
by their presence and their wisdom and their loftiness of 
tone, create in their fellow-mortals "a new consciousness 
of wealth, by opening their eyes to unobserved ad- 
vantages," — and (I should like to add) by opening their 
eyes to the blessing and beauty of the Gospel of Christ. 
Now, that is "making . . . rich." That is the 
wealth of Enriching Service, where, blessed as it is to 
"receive," it is even "more blesssed to give." And, we 
don't require money to excel along that line. No, nor 
brilliant intellects either. No, nor conspicuous social po- 
sition either. A pure and loving heart and a kindly hand 
and spontaneity and frankness — in a word, being our best 
selves — is all that is needed. "As poor, yet making many 
rich." 

And of course, my friends, the crowning instance of this 
wealth of Enriching Service is our Lord Jesus Christ 
Himself, — "Who, for the joy that was set before Him, 
endured the cross, despising the shame." What "joy that 
was set before Him?" Not just the "joy" of returning to 
the Father's nearer presence and resuming His place of 
distinction and glory ; but, I take it, the "joy" of making 
His brethren of mankind free and glad and worthy-of- 
their-heavenly-citizenship. Yes, "as poor, yet making 
many rich:" and therefore not "poor" after all, but rich 
beyond all computation in being the incomparable 'Help- 
er and Friend' of Humanity. 

And then, my friends, I wish to close by reminding 



Abiding Wealth 229 

you of one other saying of the great Book: "The bless- 
ing of the Lord, it maketh rich." 

"The blessing of the Lord!" What does that mean? 
Well, it is indescribable. Most certainly it does not mean 
merely a series of strokes of good luck. No, no : it means 
far more — far better — than that. It means Inspiration. 
It means the purifying, and the chastening, and the deep- 
ening, and the gladdening of one's whole life. If, then, 
my friend, you have reason to be persuaded that God is 
really "blessing" you — in whatever way and by whatever 
unlikely-looking means — , then you have equal reason to 
insist that you, for one, are a wealthy soul — "rich toward 
God." 



XXIII 
SONGS IN THE NIGHT 

(Christmas, 191 5) 

"God my Maker, who g'vceth songs in the night!' — Job 
XXXV, IO. 

T^ VERY now and then, in this Book of books, you come 
upon a passage or a phrase which stands there in its 
own right, so to speak. I mean that, in order to appreciate 
the truth of it and the poetry of it and the comfort of it 
and the inspiration of it, you do not of necessity have to 
study the whole chapter or paragraph in which it stands. 
Such is the part sentence I have taken for my text this 
morning, — "God . . . Who giveth songs in the 
night." No matter what precise point Elihu means to 
make here in the Book of Job, his phrase "songs in the 
night" arrests us at once, and is for all time. 

Nay more, although it stands in the pre-Christian book 
of Job, this phrase is, in essence and import, a New Test- 
ament phrase — a Christian phrase ("songs in the night"). 
For one of the most distinctive and distinguishing things 
about Christianity is just the wonders it can accomplish 
in unlikely places, and at unlikely times, and with unlikely 
things, and through unlikely people. "Songs in the night", 
— Gospel music in the time of darkness and uncertainty 
and fear. 

It is precisely this idea that lies back of such Scripture 
230 



Songs in the Night 23! 

sayings about the Almighty Father as His 'furnishing a 
table in the wilderness,' and His 'turning the rock into a 
standing water, and the flint into a fountain of waters', 
and His making 'the desert blossom as the rose', and 
His bringing a Saviour out of unlikely conditions — like "a 
root out of a dry ground." And it is the same idea that is 
embedded in such Apostolic passages as these: — "As sor- 
rowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many 
rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things"; 
and, "Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my 
infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 
Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in 
necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: 
for when I am weak, then am I strong." 

Yes, the "night" may be ever so dark, or ever so long, 
or ever so eerie, or ever so stormy. It may, in short, be 
as unpropitious for music and as hostile to song as we 
could well imagine. Still the God, Whose are both 
summer and winter and both south and north and 
both day and night, "giveth songs in the night", — music 
in the most unlikely circumstances: the music of faith 
and hope and love, — the music of Gospel cheer. 

Are we not commemorating the fact, these very days, 
that it was while shepherds were "keeping watch over their 
flock by night" that the Christ of God was ushered into 
this world? Yes, "by night" in more senses than one. Lit- 
erally "by night" : when all was dark, and the folk of the 
Northern hemisphere were asleep. In a dark and obscure 
corner of the world, too: in "little, obscure Bethlehem" 
of "little, obscure Judea." In one of the night seasons of 
human history, too: when people were groping their way 



232 The Imperishable Heart 

by the dim light of uncertain faiths, and when the state 
of society was unusually confused and chaotic. . . . 
And then, to whom were the "good tidings of great joy" 
first announced in song? To a band of humble shep- 
herds, half-shivering at their commonplace task: so that 
"the very birth-hour of Christianity irradiated the humble 
doings of humble people", and for all time "common work 
was encircled with an immortal crown." 
"O little town of Bethlehem, 

How still we see thee lie; 
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep 

The silent stars go by: 
Yet in thy dark streets shineth 

The Everlasting light. . . ." 
What a distinction for "little Bethlehem" that night, — 
God's love made articulate in song! What a distinction 
for that night of all the nights of all the years, — that just 
that night came the immortal song of Human Redemp- 
tion! What a distinction for any night-season of human 
doubt and sorrow, — that God may lighten it to joy and 
touch it to immortality with the music of the Gospel! 
"God our Maker, Who giveth songs in the night." 

"The Lord will command His loving kindness in the 
daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me: 
. . . I call to remembrance my song in the night." 
Ah yes, my friends, what wonderful messages of grace, 
what refreshments of spirit, what healings and hearten- 
in gs have come to many of us in the 'night seasons' of our 
lives — in our times of deprivation and disappointment! 
One of last century's poets, whose verse is not so well 



Songs in the Night 233 

known as it should be, (I mean, Lewis Morris) says very 
beautifully that 

"Only Suffering draws 

"The inner heart of song, and can elicit 

"The perfumes of the soul." 
And surely, my friends, it is the indisputable fact that, but 
for the shadows and thwartings of the great souls of 
humanity, more than half of the finest music we have 
would never have been forthcoming, and more than half 
of the most inspiring sermons that have been preached 
would never have been even conceived, and more than 
half of the greatest books that have enriched and cheered 
humanity — from old Homer to Robert Louis Stevenson 
and Sidney Lanier of our own time — would never have 
seen the light of day. Why, you have only to mention 
the names of, say, the first score of the greatest humans 
known to us — in literature or in art or in national lead- 
ership — to be convinced that it is only "through much 
tribulation" that the "helpers and friends of mankind" 
enter into their "kingdom" of character and influence and 
fame. There are, for example Milton in literature, and 
Beethoven in art, and Lincoln in national leadership : men 
of many sorrows. . . . But we do not need to go 
to men and women of distinction to be convinced of this 
thing — convinced that "God . . . giveth songs in 
the night." For surely there is not a single one of us 
who has really lived, who has not heard the music of God 
in our dark hours and in our trial times, and who is not 
able to say that these "songs in the night" have been more 
wonderful and more inspirational than any songs of the 
day or any martial music of prosperity! . . . 



234 The Imperishable Heart 

"And there were . . . shepherds * * * keep^ 
ing watch over their flocks by night. And, lo, the angel 
of the Lord came upon them, and . . . said . . 

. , Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy . 

. . And . . . there was with the angel a mul- 
titude of the heavenly host praising God." Astronomers 
tell us, you know, that most of the "fixed" stars (as we 
call them) are travelling through space at an incredible 
speed. Be that as it may, it is practically certain that the 
same stars are shining down on us these nights of the 
twentieth century that shone down upon the shepherds 
the first Christmas Eve. Even so, my friends, the same 
music of the Gospel, the same 'song in the night,' the 
same Christmas message, the same CHRIST comes to us 
today that came to Bethlehem full nineteen hundred years 
ago, — for "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, 
and for ever." Yes, it is there all the time, — wave upon 
wave of holy and heartening music — "The Night Song 
of Bethlehem." True, we may not be hearing the angels 
sing as the shepherds heard them. Nay more, we may not 
be heeding the music of the Gospel as it has often been 
heeded in days gone by. But, notwithstanding our dull- 
ness and our deadness — and notwithstanding our absorp- 
tion in mere things — and notwithstanding our querulous- 
ness and our quarrelsomeness, the music of the Gospel is 
there all the while and the angels keep on singing: 
"And still their heavenly music floats 
O'er all the weary world: 
Above its sad and lowly plains 
They bend on hovering wing, 



Songs in the Night 235 

And ever o'er its Babel sounds 
The blessed angels sing." 
If we don't hear them, it is not their fault: it is our 
fault. 

Ay, but let me tell you, friends, there are many who 
are hearing the angels sing these days, who are detecting 
the "songs in the night," who are tracing streaks of light 
and notes of hope and promise in the confusion of these 
very days in which there is so much that is of the night — 
dark and eerie and fearsome. I have been reading, lately, 
quite a little about the Christmas message and the Christ- 
mas mirth in view of the world situation today ; and noth- 
ing has impressed me more, in all I have read, than the 
hopefulness of it all and the confident assumption that, 
ere very long, a new appreciation of the Gospel of Christ 
and a new awakening to its fundamental claims are going 
to bring order and peace out of all this confusion. O 
yes, my friends, be you sure the music of the Gospel is the 
only thing that will do it. Nearly everything else has 
been tried, and has been found a failure. Culture has 
but sufficed, for the most part, to make men proud and 
overbearing. Science has but sufficed, for the most part, 
to provide us with instruments of espionage and destruc- 
tion. Art has been sneered-at as not for fighting times, 
and its treasures have been despised and destroyed with- 
out a tremor of shame. Diplomacy is, apparently, futile. 
It remains yet, then, for the Christian Gospel of Good- 
Will to be tried. Yes, I say, to be tried ; for, if it be said 
that Christianity also, like Culture and Science and Di- 
plomacy, has failed so far, it is because — as a famous 
American once said — it "has not been tried." 



236 The Imperishable Heart 

O, but there are scores of people all over the earth today 
who have tried CHRIST, and who are trying CHRIST; 
and who are not being disappointed in Him. In how 
many territories, in how many homes, in how many hearts 
there is, we should be inclined to say, mighty little music 
these Christmas Days of 191 5! By reason of sickness, by 
reason of business depression and ill-luck, by reason of 
bereavement, by reason of the bloody ravages of war, and 
what not, the light has gone out — we should say — in many 
places, and it is night in many human souls. Ay, but the 
Master Musician can still provide these stricken souls 
with melodies of grace, and scores of them are singing their 
"songs in the night." 

Have I said that our text this morning reminds us 
that one of the distinctions of Christianity is its knack and 
power of bringing brightness and beauty and beneficence 
out of unlikely places and through unlikely people? Yes, 
not a few of those who have conceived and commenced 
and in part conducted some of the greatest movements of 
history have been men and women of no conspicuous posi- 
tion: deemed faddists and what not (as Christ Himself 
was) by the severely practical and the worldly-wise. As 
Robert Louis Stevenson says somewhere, "The time would 
fail me if I were to recite all the names in history whose 
exploits are perfectly irrational and even shocking to the 
business mind". We have been poking fun — most of us 
(I plead guilty myself) — we have been poking fun at Mr. 
Henry Ford's amateur Peace Expedition. Well, it is, to 
say the least of it, a venture of faith ; and, it being so, we 
should treat it with courtesy. Moreover, that civilian ven- 



Songs in the Night 237 

ture is a protest against the ineptitude of diplomacy and 
officialdom to even negotiate for peace — let alone secure it : 
and, as I have lived the greater part of my life in the 
atmosphere of officialdom and militarism which envelopes 
Europe, I would say, with all my heart and in the strong- 
est way I can, God keep this Country from generating a 
similar atmosphere, — for it is stifling and poisonous. Re- 
member, it was no other than George Washington who 
said, in one of his latest addresses to the people of this 
Country, ''Avoid overgrown military establishments, 
which are particularly hostile to republican liberties." 
And, in regard to all such ventures of faith as the Ford 
Peace Expedition, let us remember that wonderful Old 
Testament saying, "Thou didst well in that it was in thine 
heart"; and that other Scripture saying (New Testament 
and Apostolic), "Therefore judge nothing before the 
time." Besides, even when our ventures of faith appar- 
ently fail, let us bear in mind that, as George Eliot says, 
"failure after . . . perseverance is much grander than 
never to have had a striving good enough to be called a 
failure." . . . "Songs in the night!" Yes, at the 
touch of the Spirit and the power of Christ the unlikely 
does happen sometimes: witness the marvellous growth of 
Christianity itself from the most minute and obscure and 
despised beginnings. "For who hath despised the day of 
small things?" . . . 

My friends, does it seem to any of you today as if the 
Peace Song of the angels had been forever silenced, — for- 
ever lost in the black night of human treachery and strife 
and race-hatred and blatant and blazing warfare? If such 



238 The Imperishable Heart 

is your thought, will you just think of these two things? 

In the first place, will you bear in mind that, with re- 
markably little difference, "it was into just such a world 
as this, a world ruled by the iron hand . . . divided 
by class hatreds, oppressed by tyranny and greed, filled 
with murder and pride and lust — (it was into just such a 
world as this) that the Divine Child came. ... It 
was because the world was such a world that Immanuel 
came." If ever the Gospel was needed, it was then. And, 
if ever the Gospel was needed, it is now. 

And so, my friends, if, today, we cannot sing the Christ- 
mas song of 'Peace on earth, — goodwill among men' — if 
we cannot sing that song with the assurance that it is true 
today and amply fulfilled, let us at least sing it with the 
assurance that it is needed today as almost never before. 
For "the darker the day, the more we must pray." Ay, 
and the darker the night, the more we have need of the 
music of God, "Who giveth songs in the night." 

And, for a second thing — and a last thing this morning 
— will you take this with you? There is a passage in one 
of the Gospels which tells us that, when at one time Jesus 
sought retirement "and would have no man know it," He 
was followed after all, and dicovered; for "He could not 
be hid." And there is an old English legend to the effect 
that the bells of buried Churches — Churches long disused 
and crumbled to pieces and their stones all but covered out 
of sight by the accumulated soil of the centuries — that the 
bells of these buried Churches may always be heard on 
Christmas Eve. Even so, brethren, our Christian ideals 
and our Christian purposes, and the appeals of the Christ 
for human rectitude and human brotherhood and love, 



Songs in the Night 239 

may seem, time and again, to be buried out of all sight and 
out of all memory. But, at such a season as this (our 
blessed Christmastide), our ears are surprised by the call 
of these buried things, and we hear again the appeal of the 
CHRIST — the pleadings of the King of Love. Yes, 
indeed, "Christmas will survive this war" : for Christmas 
means "the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our 
Lord." 



XXIV 
THE CHILDREN 

(Children's Day) 

"And He took a child, and set him in the midst" — Mark 
IX, 36. 

"THE Child in the midst! What a splendid object- 
lesson ! What an irresistible appeal ! Better than dis- 
course and book and blackboard all together. For there 
is nothing so wonderful — there is nothing so full of sug- 
gestions and possibilities — as a little child. That little 
piece of flesh and blood: that young mind: that bud of a 
soul — about to open to the great wide world of things 
and of thoughts. 

The Child in the midst ! One of God's very best gifts. 
Pity those who do not think so! Not to love children is 
to stand condemned. To "despise one of these little 
ones" is inhuman: nay, according to Christ Himself, it is 
to be in grave danger of being thrust. 

"out of the ken of God 

"Or care of man, for ever and ever more!" . . . 

And so, my friends, you will find that mostly all the 
great men and women, the big souls, the real benefactors 
of Humanity have been drawn as by a magnet to the 
children, and have loved the bairns, — whether they had 
bairns of their own or not. Ay, and some of the saddest 
and most thwarted souls of mankind have received half 
their comfort from the gaiety and grace of the children. 
"Blessed be childhood," says Amiel (and he was a sad 
240 



The Children 241 

enough soul), "(blessed be childhood), which brings down 
something of heaven into the minds of our rough earthli- 
ness. . . . Blessed be childhood for the good that it 
does, and for the good which it brings about carelessly and 
unconsciously, by simply making us love it and letting 
itself be loved. What little of Paradise we see still on 
earth is due to its presence among us." And Robert 
Louis Stevenson used to say, in the times of his ill-health 
and uncertain prospects, "I like children better every day, 
I think, and most other things less. ... I don't 
know how to go by them for the love of them, especially 
the very wee ones." 

We are not surprised, then, that JESUS loved the chil- 
dren; that He "took them up in His arms, put His hands 
upon them, and blessed them;" and that He put them 
forward, once and again, as the exponents of some of His 
deepest teaching on the meaning and the mystery of the 
Kingdom of God on earth. O, how differently we should 
have thought of the Christ, had we not had those fair 
glimpses of His reverence and love of the little ones! 
Without those glimpses what a blank there would have 
been! They bring Him so near us. And they bring the 
children themselves so near Him. They seem to belong 
to Christ by a special kind of propriety. I can't for the 
life of me see how anyone can object to Infant Baptism, 
as it is practised in the vast majority of the Branches of 
Christ's Church. To my mind, in the light of the Gos- 
pel record, it is the most appropriate thing imaginable. 
"And they brought young children to Jesus, that HE 
should touch them:" and we know what happened. 



242 The Imperishable Heart 

The child in the midst! What a challenge! What a 
clear call to us to realize our responsibilities ! There they 
are — the little lives: needing our protection, needing our 
leadership, needing our prayers, needing our love . . . 
There they are, too, — the coming citizens and leaders of 
the Commonwealth: and they will be in large part what 
we make them. . . . There they are, too, the future 
members and supporters of the Christian Church: and 
they will be in large part what we are. . . . O yes, 
the children are a great joy; but they are a grim chal- 
lenge as well. God help those who accept only the joy 
of it all, while failing to see the challenge of it. For I 
tell you, brethren, as I look away back upon my own early 
life, and as I look round about me today, I am more and 
more convinced that one of the most difficult tasks in life 
is just the task of 'training up the children in the way they 
should go.' O, it sounds so like a copy-book maxim — 
that verse of the Book of Proverbs, "Train up a child in 
the way he should go." But, in good sooth, it is more 
than a mere copy-book maxim : it is a stern reality, and re- 
quires an amazing amount of both grit and grace. And 
let me tell you, fathers and mothers, — (and, mark you, a 
son or daughter can say this with as much right-of-experi- 
ence and with as much impressiveness as any parent can 
say it) — well, let me tell you, it will be an awful thing 
if any of your children shall ever have to say in after 
life, "Had we been better guided, we should not have 
made shipwreck of our lives." 

But surely there is a great joy at the heart of the respon- 
sibility. Indeed I am prepared to believe that the joy of 
fatherhood — or of motherhood — is just about the purest 



The Children 243 

and most substantial happiness that this world holds for 
us mortals. For is not the highest kind of happiness the 
happiness which most successfully lifts one out of oneself? 
And that, I trow, is what the joy of parenthood does. 

Yes, what a difference the Child in the house makes! 
Not simply that there is a deal of noise where there used 
to be quietness. Nor yet simply that all the household ar- 
rangements and household duties seem to centre now 
around the little one. But rather that, for the parents 
themselves, the whole perspective of life is altered, and the 
future all re-mapped and re-colored: especially so in the 
case of a first-born. Everything is different. . . . 

And that, my friends, is what I wish to make most of 
this morning: not so much what we may do for the chil- 
dren, as what the children may do — and are doing — for us. 

The Child in the midst is teaching us all sorts of lessons, 
and furnishing us with all sorts of inspirations. 

How the children appeal to us by their very frolics and 
make-believes! How they help to keep us human, and to 
lighten our burdens, and to make many of our anxieties 
appear ridiculous! No wonder Amiel said, "Blessed be 
childhood for the good it doesV 

How they appeal to us, too, by their outright affection ! 
And, just as its homeliest doll is usually the little one's 
favorite of all its dolls, even so sometimes the most un- 
likely individuals often taste of a child's affection. I was 
reading lately about a party of visitors who were going 
through a State's prison. In the party was a girl of very 
tender years, who soon became very tired. The officer in 
charge of the party hailed one of the prisoners, and asked 
him to carry the child, At the close of the tour of inspec- 



244 The Imperishable Heart 

tion the child's mother told hex to thank the prisoner: 
which she did — child fashion — by putting her arms round 
his neck and kissing him. That was too much for the pris- 
oner. He turned his head and hurried away, — the tears 
rolling down his cheeks. The appeal of love had gone to 
his heart, and — who knows? — had made a new man of 
him. For, as the writer of the story adds, "A loving little 
child is a good deal like the dear Lord Jesus. A loving 
little child is more like the great God than the rest of us." 
— "We love Him, because He first loved us." 

You know, too, my friends, — many of you — how much 
the Child in the house means in the day of trouble, very 
specially in the shadowed hours of bereavement. When 
the wave which has curled itself up on the rock is pulled 
back and slips down, it finds another resting-place — the 
soft sand below. Even so, when some maturer soul who 
has companioned you for years slips your mortal grasp and 
you have to let go, thank God if He has left you some 
slenderer, but no less sincere, affection to rest upon — in 
the hearts of your children. "And a little child shall lead 
them." 

And then I believe, brethren, it is the Child in the midst 
who is going to solve a great many of our problems for us : 
I mean, the prospects of the children of today, the demands 
of their lives, and our desires for them. 

Do you mean to tell me, for instance, that the liquor 
problem will not be solved when people have once made 
up their minds whether or not they wish their boys and 
girls to tamper with alcohol? 

And what about the menace of war — the rank idiocy of 
war? There is, I have been told, a famous picture depict- 



The Children 245 

ing the departure of a soldier from his home for immediate 
action on the field. He is in the act of bidding his wife 
and little girl good-bye ; and the little girl is represented as 
saying to him "Daddy, are you going away to kill some 
other little girl's daddy?" Why, a scene like that is more 
eloquent than hundreds of volumes — on the inhumanity of 
warfare — the ungodliness of it — the very devilishness of it. 
Yes, because a great nation receives some slight affront, 
shall it proceed to deprive scores of its own mothers and 
children and scores of the mothers and children of the 
other party of their bread-winners? Murder! It is noth- 
ing more nor less. And the diplomats don't do the fight- 
ing: and the gun-manufacturers pocket the dollars, and 
chuckle. When are we going to open our eyes and see! 
Then, my friends, you have only to read a book like 
George Eliot's delightful little story "Silas Marner," in 
order to see how a Child may alter the whole course of a 
man's life and give a totally new direction to his ambi- 
tions, — in order to see that (as Wordsworth says, quoted 
by Geo. Eliot on the title-page to "Silas Marner"), 
"A child, more than all other gifts, 
"That earth can offer to declining man, 
"Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts." 
But here is a more modern instance. It is from a book 
called, "The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets": writ- 
ten by that remarkable woman, Jane Addams, of Chicago. 
She gives, there, the following account, without naming 
him, of "a distinguished labor leader in England." — "His 
affections had been starved, even as a child, for he knew 
nothing of his parents, his earliest memories being asso- 
ciated with a wretched old woman, who took the most cas- 



246 The Imperishable Heart 

ual care of him. When he was nine years old he ran away 
to sea and for the next seven years led the rough life of a 
dock laborer, until he became interested in a little crippled 
boy, who by the death of his father had been left solitary 
on a freight boat. My English friend promptly adopted 
the child as his own, and all the questions of life centered 
about his young protege. He was constantly driven to 
attend evening meetings, where he heard discussed those 
social conditions which bear so hard upon the weak and 
sick. The crippled boy lived until he was fifteen, and by 
that time the regeneration of his foster-father was com- 
plete, — the young docker was committed for life to the 
bettering of social conditions. It is doubtful" adds Miss 
Addams, "(it is doubtful) whether any abstract moral ap- 
peal could have reached such a roving nature. . . . 
Only a pull upon his deepest sympathies and affections, 
his desire to protect and cherish a weaker thing, could pos- 
sibly have stimulated him." . . . Again I would 
quote the ancient prophet, "A little child shall lead them." 
And to be sure, brethren, we can never forget that, 
when our Father in heaven wished to reveal Himself to 
man in all the tenderness of His grace and in all His 
human-heartedness (if I may put it so), and when He 
wished to convince us of His interest in every aspect and 
stage of human life, He brought it to pass that "the 
Word became flesh" and "Jesus was born in Bethlehem." 
And if the story of Calvary has been the regeneration of 
the world, let us remember that we should not have had 
the story of Calvary had it not been for the story of 
Bethlehem first. 



The Children 247 

"A little Child the Saviour came." . . . 
"And He took a child, and set him in the midst of them." 

My friends, I have another thought to close with to- 
day. Let us remember that we are observing this as 
"Children's Day." Why not more regularly 'set the chil- 
dren in the midst' of the Church? They are too little 
with us here: too little with us, I mean, in the staple 
services of the Sanctuary — as distinct from the Sunday- 
School hour. Would that I might see more Children's 
faces when I came to this desk of a Sunday morning — or 
evening ! 

Now, there are two ways of looking at the matter. 

One way of looking at it is that, just as a Child has 
a right to be housed and fed and dressed and educated 
and so on, even so a Child has a right to the Gospel and 
the Institutions of the Gospel — a right to the teachings 
and associations and influences of the Sanctuary. Conse- 
quently a parent who does not encourage his children to 
take advantage of their Gospel rights is as untrue to his 
trust as a parent who fails to house or feed or dress or 
educate his children. You can't get past that. 

But there is another way of looking at the matter. As 
I have already said, I am thinking for the most part to- 
day of what the Children may do for us — if we give them 
the chance. Just think, then, what the Children might do 
for us (what, indeed, might they not do for us?) if they 
were with us here Sunday after Sunday with fair regular- 
ity and in dozens : and there is no reason why they should 
not be. I venture to say, they would brighten the worship 
immensely. They would enliven the praise immensely. 



248 The Imperishable Heart 

They would cheer the preacher, and improve the preach- 
ing immensely. Why, an assembled congregation without 
Children Sunday after Sunday — or with only the merest 
handful of boys and girls between the ages, say, of eight 
and eighteen — is an incomplete and incongruous thing al- 
together. It is like a piece of music with all the parts 
— except the Melody. Or it is like a portrait on can- 
vass — with the Eyes left out. O yes, with all respect 
to my maturer hearers, I would say, Let us not be with- 
out the Melody, let us not be without the Eyes. You 
remember that Praise Psalm (we read it this morning) 
where it says, "Praise the Lord . . . both young 
men and maidens; old men, and children/' And in one 
of his prophetic pictures — speaking of the ideal city — the 
prophet Zechariah has this to say, "And the streets of the 
city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets 
thereof." To be sure an audience entirely composed of 
adult men or adult women is very impressive. But, my 
friends, in the ordinary services of the Church we need 
the boys and girls — we need the Child in the midst. 

Well, I suppose it is not altogether the Children's 
fault that they are not here in larger numbers. We can 
scarcely expect the Children to come, if the Parents don't 
come. And mark you this, by the way: don't send your 
children to Church, — bring them. Why deprive either 
yourselves or them of your rights and privileges in this 
matter? If you turn to the Great Book here, you find 
that the Children are always taken into account. For 
example, as when Moses says, "These words, which I 
command this day, shall be in thine heart; and thou 
shalt teach them diligently unto thy children :" and again, 



The Children 249 

"Ye stand this day all of you before the Lord your God; 
your captains , your elders, and your officers, 

with all the men of Israel, your little ones, and your 
wives" — and so on. And there are scores of passages of 
like import. Many of you know the unspeakable value 
of the Child in the home, — and the joy and the inspiration 
of it. Let me tell you, then, the Child is as valuable in 
the CHURCH, — and as much a source of inspiration 
there. And let me tell you this also : notwithstanding all 
the imperfections of our Christian worship and Christian 
preaching, the Child will get something here — something 
very precious, too, at that — which he cannot get any- 
where else. For the House of God has its own distinc- 
tive gifts. 

"And HE took a Child, 
and set him in the midst of them." 



XXV 

THE MOTHERS 

(Mother's Day) 

"Thy mother shall be glad." — Proverbs XXIII, 25. 

HP HY mother shall be glad !" And who in all the 
world better deserves to be made glad than one's 
mother? A mother's gladness, too, is so beautifully unsel- 
fish: for it is, almost invariably, on account of her chil- 
dren. 

The Bible has a good deal to say about Mothers. There 
is, for example, the Fifth Commandment ("the first com- 
mandment with promise," as St. Paul describes it), "Hon- 
our thy father and thy mother : that thy days may be long 
upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee." 
One of the awesome 'curses' in the Book of Deuteronomy 
is in these terms, "Cursed be he that setteth light by his 
father or his mother." Then in the account of the 
Hebrew kings it is said of one and another and another of 
them, for some mysterious reason, "And his mother's name 
was" so-and-so. In this Book of Proverbs, besides the 
words of our text, you have such passages as these: "My 
son . . . forsake not the law of thy mother," "a fool- 
ish son is the heaviness of his mother," and so on. And in 
the last chapter of Isaiah, which belongs to one of the 
most eloquent sections of all Scripture, you have that won- 
250 



The Mothers 25 1 

derful suggestion of the Mother-heart of the Eternal — in 
addition to His Fatherhood, "As one whom his mother 
comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be com- 
forted . . ." 

The Mothers of the Bible, too, are an interesting group, 
— from Eve "the mother of all living" to the mysterious 
mother of the Book of Revelation who "brought forth a 
man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: 
and her child was caught up unto God, and to His 
throne." 

Being an eminently fair and frank transcript of human 
life, the Bible brings to our notice some mothers who were 
by no means model mothers. The craftiness of Rebekah, 
for instance, reproduced in her son Jacob, is scarcely to our 
liking. Then there was Jezebel, wife of Ahab and mother 
of Jehoram, who would stick at nothing in the way of blood- 
shed to gain her own ends, and who was the only individ- 
ual of either sex of whom the rugged prophet Elijah was 
afraid. There was Herodias, too, who was responsible for 
the death of John the Baptist. And one or two others. 

But the majority of the Mothers of the Bible are a right 
good sort. Moses' mother, for instance, with her rare 
combination of adroitness and affection: to whom the 
Egyptian princess innocently handed over the little child of 
the ark of bulrushes, with these words, "Take this child 
away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages." 
Then Samuel's mother, with her prayers and her praises, — 
'lending' her son (as she phrased it) 'lending' her son to 
the Lord for life, and caring for him so thoughtfully and 
so substantially in the days of his novitiate: "moreover 
his mother made him a little coat, and brought it to him 



252 The Imperishable Heart 

from year to year, when she came up with her husband to 
offer the yearly sacrifice" (what a delightfully human 
touch!). Then Mary, "the mother of Jesus," — "blessed 

among women" : with her "My soul doth mag- 
nify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Sav- 
iour" : amid the 'wonderment' of men and women 'keep- 
ing all these things, and pondering them in her heart': 
with her Divine Son at the beginning of His ministry — on 
the occasion of the marriage in Cana of Galilee, and with 
Him at the end of His ministry — 

"Near the cross was Maty weeping, 
There her mournful station keeping." 
Then there were the mothers who "brought young chil- 
dren to Jesus, that He should touch them," — the predeces- 
sors of the tens of thousands of mothers who have been 
bringing their "young children" to Jesus ever since. Then 
Eunice — Timothy's mother: "when I call to remem- 
brance," writes Paul to Timothy, you recollect, ("when 
I call to remembrance) the unfeigned faith that is in thee, 
which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother 
Eunice." 

Outside of Scripture, too, what a host of good mothers 
there have been : some of them on the roll of fame ! 

For example, St. Augustine's mother — Monica: to 
whose persevering prayers we owe the conversion of her 
son from a life of subtle worldliness and self-pleasing, and 
his consequent industry and saintliness. It is told of Gar- 
ibaldi that in the hottest of his battles he seemed to see his 
mother on her knees in prayer. John Randolph, "of Roan- 
oke," an American congressman of whom it is said that he 



The Mothers 253 

was "distinguished for his eloquence, wit, sarcasm, and 
eccentricity," wrote, very shortly before his death, to a 
friend in these terms, "At one period of my life I was on 
the point of becoming an . . . atheist. I had let go 
my hold in a great degree of the doctrines of Christianity 
and of the truths of the Bible, and was about taking the 
plunge into that dreadful abyss of atheism. I was only 
held back from it by the recollection that when I was a 
little child my mother, who is now a saint in heaven, used 
to make me kneel by her side, and then, taking my little 
hands between hers, taught me to say, 'Our Father, Who 
art in heaven.' " And it was Abraham Lincoln who said, 
"All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother." 

Indeed, my friends, there is nothing so impresses one, J! 
in reading the biographies of the world's great men — I mean 
the real "helpers and friends of mankind" — (there is noth- 
ing so impresses one) in almost every instance as just this: 
the debt of gratitude we owe to the mothers of these men 
for their finest traits of character. . . . O you Moth- 
ers, I wonder if you realize the deep, deep reach and the 
long, long reach of your influence. I tell you, there is 
nothing in this world to be compared to it. Living, you 
can work spiritual miracles in the lives of your children: 
and, when you are dead, the spiritual miracles will not 
cease to be wrought by the persuasive power of your fra- 
grant memory. 

The Literature of the World, too, has duly honored 
Motherhood, and has spoken of our Mothers in terms 
of much appreciation and much beauty. 

"The holiest thing alive," writes Coleridge of Mother- 



254 The Imperishable Heart 

hood. 

Tennyson, in "The Princess," after making the Prince 
tell of the influence of his mother — 

"All dipt 
"In Angel instincts, breathing Paradise, 
"Interpreter between the Gods and men, 
"Who look'd all native to her place, and yet 
"On tiptoe seem'd to touch upon a sphere 
"Too gross to tread, and all male minds perforce 
"Sway'd to her from their orbits as they moved, 
"And girdled her with music" — 
after that passage he makes the Prince add, 

"Happy he 
"With such a mother! faith in womankind 
"Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high 
"Comes easy to him, and tho' he trip and fall 
"He shall not blind his soul with clay." 
One of the most impressive poems I have read recently 
is the poem entitled "The Daguerreotype," by William 
Vaughn Moody — a poet of whom this Country has rea- 
son to be proud. The poem represents a man studying 
the portrait of his mother as she was when a girl, — 
"My mother as she looked at seventeen." 

"God, how Thy ways are strange! 

"That this should be, even this, 

"The patient head 

"Which suffered years ago the dreary change! 

"That these so dewy lips should be the same 

"As those I stooped to kiss 

"And heard my harrowing half -spoken name. 



The Mothers 255 

"A little ere the one who bowed above her, 
"Our father and her very constant lover, 
"Rose stoical, and we knew that she was dead." 
The man has lived, it would appear, a somewhat disap- 
pointing life, has failed to fulfill his mother's ambitions 
for him: and so — still gazing at the picture — he closes on 
this wise, 

"See, I was yours and I am in the dust. 

"Then look not so, as if all things were well ! 

"Take your eyes from me, leave me to my shame, 

"Or else, if gaze they must, 

"Steel them with judgment, darken them with blame; 

"But by the ways of light ineffable 

"You bade me go and I have faltered from, 

"By the low waters moaning out of hell 

"Whereto my feet have come, 

"Lay not on me these intolerable 

"Looks of rejoicing love, of pride, of happy trust! 

"Nothing dismayed? 

"By all I say and all I hint not made 

"Afraid? 

"O then, stay by me! Let 

"These eyes afflict me, cleanse me, keep me yet, 

"Brave eyes and true! 

"See how the shrivelled heart, that long has lain 

"Dead to delight and pain, 

"Stirs, and begins again 

"To utter pleasant life, as if it knew 

"The wintry days were through; 

"As if in its awakening boughs it heard 

"The quick, sweet-spoken bird. 



256 The Imperishable Heart 

"Strong eyes and brave, 

"Inexorable to save!" 
The poem from beginning to end is a thing of great pow- 
er, as well as great pathos. 

Then, to be sure, we have Kipling's famous lines, — so 
boldly beautiful: 

"If I were hanged on the highest hill, 
Mother o' mine, 
I know whose love would follow me still, 
Mother o' mine. 

"If I were drowned in the deepest sea, 
Mother o' mine, 
I know whose tears would come down to me, 
Mother o' mine. 

"If I were damned of body and soul, 

Mother o' mine, 
I know whose prayers would make me whole, 

Mother o' mine." 
And mark you this, my friends: we are encouraged by 
Christ Himself to hold to the persuasion that the Love 
of God is like that, that the Love of GOD is certainly no 
less tender, no less patient, no less enduring than the best 
Mother's love we have ever known. For isn't that the 
meaning that lies at the heart of such a saying of the 
Master as this, — "If ye then, being evil, know how to 
give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall 
your Father which is in heaven give good things to them 
that ask Him!" . . . 



The Mothers 257 

But, my friends, I must not forget my little text this 
morning, — "Thy mother shall be glad." 

What a privilege — to 'gladden' the heart of any fellow- 
human! What a sublime privilege — what a unique privi- 
lege, — to gladden a Mother's heart! 

And mark you this, brethren : nothing that the mother 
herself may do can gladden her heart half so much as 
some things her children may do. Mothers are very dis- 
cerning. Their eyes can look us through. God help us, 
then, to live so that we shall be able to face, without 
wincing and without a blush of shame, the searching look 
of our mothers' understanding eyes. Our mothers, too, 
are very ambitious for us. They want us to count for 
something in this world. They want us to win distinc- 
tion along honorable lines. God help us, then, to make 
the most of ourselves — to fulfill our mothers' hopes. 

My friends, a Mother's Love is in a class by itself. 
There is nothing in the world just like it. It is so pure. 
It is so patient. It never grows cold, and it never grows 
old. And, like the Love of GOD, it will go to the 
utmost limit of suffering and sacrifice. Ay, the Mothers 
understand the Cross of Christ better than anybody else. 
Honor, then, to whom honor is due; and, love for love. 

One of the blessed compensations of growing old is 
that, as year is added to year, we come to understand bet- 
ter what our parents have done for us and have been to 
us, and to appreciate more fully the depth of their devo- 
tion. When we were but boys and girls, we didn't half 
understand. Thank God for the deeper teachings and 
the added insight of the silent years. 

We sometimes say, "What is Home without a Moth- 



258 The Imperishable Heart 

er?" And we sometimes speak of the Heavenly Country 
as Home. Well, I often think that what will make Heav- 
en Home to us will be the simple fact that our Mothers 
will be there. 

"Jesus, in mercy bring us 
To that dear land of rest!'* 

And so, brethren, in our hearts, and in the best ways — 
the tenderest and the handsomest ways — we know of, let 
us honor the MOTHERS today! Ay, and not today 
only; but every day, 

"Thy mother shall be glad\" 

Ah, but there are many sad mothers today. Some of 
them are sad, because, as we have heard the Book saying, 
'foolish sons are the heaviness of their mothers.' Others 
are sad, because their sons have been wounded or killed 
in battle, or have been brought to early graves by accident 
or disease. And there are various other reasons. 

Verily, we may not forget the sad mothers today. 'We 
commend them to God, and to the word of His grace.' 
For we know that the only chance of their hearts being 
made glad (as it is the only chance of any heart being made 
abidingly glad) is that they 'dwell in the secret place of the 
Most High, and abide under the shadow of the Al- 
mighty/ and that they receive some new assurance of the 
Love of GOD- — the source and spring of their own love. 

And, my friends, to those of you whose mothers are no 
longer with you in the flesh I would just say, there is 
m such thing as a "dead" mother. "They shall see His 



The Mothers 259 

face"; and in the light of His countenance and in the in- 
spiration of His nearer presence they love you better than 
ever and, in wondrous ways, they are ministering to you 
still. Yes, of their Ministry of Love we may well say, 
"Time cannot age it, 
Death cannot slay." 
God bless our Mothers, then, today — and every day. 
And in teaching us to love them more deeply and to be 
increasingly loyal to their thoughts of us and their ambi- 
tions for us, may the Father of us all make us also "to 
increase and abound in love one toward another, and 
toward all menl" 



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